John Niven & Alan Parks: O Brother

N.B. Please note: this event will now be taking place in the Fiction Room of the Bookshop, not Greenside Church.

Don't believe the hype? Come, then, and hear from John on the matter at the Bookshop this September for what will be, in true Niven fashion, a tender and blackly funny evening. A night to remember only helped by the fact that Alan Parks, 2022's McIlvanney Prize winner, will be chairing the discussion.

O Brother

O Brother, John's first foray into memoir writing, is about his little brother Gary; a fearless, popular, stubborn, handsome, hilarious and sometimes terrifying man who, in 2010, after years of chaotic struggle against the world, took his own life at the age of 42.

Hoping for the best while often witnessing the worst, John, his younger sister Linda and their mother, Jeanette, saw the darkest fears they had for Gary played out in drug deals, prison and bankruptcy. While his life spiralled downward and the love the Nivens' shared was tested to its limit, John drifted into his own trouble in the music industry, a world where excess was often a marker of success.
Tracking the lives of two brothers in changing times - from illicit cans of lager in 70s sitting rooms to ecstasy in 90s raves - O Brother is a tender, affecting and often uproariously funny story. It is about the bonds of family and how we try to keep the finest of those we lose alive. It is about black sheep and what it takes to break the ties that bind. Fundamentally it is about how families survive suicide, 'that last cry, from the saddest outpost.'

About the author

John Niven is the author of eleven books, including Kill Your Friends, The Second Coming and Straight White Male. As a screenwriter his credits include The Trip, Kill Your Friends and How to Build a Girl. O Brother is his first non-fiction book.