The Lost Scottish Cult-Classic: James Robertson & Alan Taylor on Gordon M Williams' From Scenes Like These

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FIRST EVER BOOKER PRIZE

'A MASTERPIECE... DEMANDS TO BE READ' - DOUGLAS STUART, AUTHOR OF SHUGGIE BAIN

Gordon M. Williams (1934 - 2017) was born in Paisley and was the author of several novels, including From Scenes Like These, which was shortlisted for the first Booker Prize in 1969, Walk Don't Walk, Big Morning Blues, The Camp, The Man Who Had Power Over Women, and The Siege of Trencher's Farm, which was made into the film Straw Dogs. He was also the ghostwriter for the autobiographies of footballers Bobby Moore, Terry Venables and Tommy Docherty. He died in 2017.

James Robertson, author of And the Land Lay Still, joins Alan Taylor to discuss this seminal piece of Scottish literature, republished this year for the first time in decades.

It's the west of Scotland in the 1950s. New houses are going up. Factories are opening.

But Dunky Logan, a 15-year-old brought up in a tenement flat in working-class Kilcaddie, is ditching school to be a labourer on a local farm. Dead set on becoming a hard case, he wants to work shoulder to shoulder with so-called real men.

Irish Catholic Mary O'Donnell arrives at the farmhouse as the new maid. She is pregnant - no boyfriend in sight. But she's smart, and she has a plan to get herself up in the world.

As Dunky is swallowed up by a vicious cycle of violence, betrayal, and booze, Mary becomes entangled in a savage family feud.

Now there's no going back, not for either of them.

'One of the finest Biritsh novels of its era. A landmark in postwar fiction. A brave and brilliant book' - Liam McIlvanney, author of The Quaker
'Raw and vigorous, harsh and authentic' * Sunday Times *
'A remarkable talent' * Times Literary Supplement *
'A rare, raw, meaty novel' * Sunday Telegraph *