The Vintage Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction

by Peter Kravitz

Overview

The Vintage Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction honors Scotland's explosive and innovative national literature with 47 of its finest representatives.

In addition to excerpts from writers such as Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting, Marabou Stork Nightmares) and James Kelman (How Late It Was, How Late), this vibrant collection includes voices new to the international scene. Alison Fell ignites the page with an art model's rant in "There's Tradition for You." Duncan Williamson reinvents a rural storytelling tradition in the poignant "Mary and the Seal." And in his brilliant introduction, editor Peter Kravitz explores Scottish writers' conflict with publishers at home and abroad—from critics who consider material "depraved" to typesetters who demand higher wages when working on pieces written by Scots.

Provocative, engrossing, and timely, The Vintage Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction celebrates nothing less than a literary revolution, in which the language and lifestyles of a generation of artists are making themselves known.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679775508
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/07/1999
Pages:	592
Product dimensions:	5.19(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.19(d)

About the Author

Peter Kravitz lives in Scotland.

Editorial Reviews

Until just the past decade, editor Kravitz states in his introduction, publishers in Scotland remained "more interested in resurrecting dead writers as opposed to looking for new ones." As recently as 1994, James Kelman's selection as the Booker Prize winner (for How Late It Was, How Late) sparked controversy in Britain and abroad, with some reviewers claiming that Kelman's phonetic Glasgow speech could be considered a foreign language. But new Scottish writers, led by Kelman and Irvine Welsh, are now a vibrant presence on the contemporary literary scene, giving voice to the Scottish urban working class. This compendious collection showcases writers who have made a splash abroad, but also ones known mostly to small reading groups in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Kelman is represented by an excerpt from "The Busconductor Hines," a surprisingly tender account of the daily life of a Glasgow bus conductor. A sampling from Welsh's Trainspotting comes as no surprise, but it's a trenchant selection. Subtitled "The First Shag in Ages," it follows junkie antihero Renton as he seeks female companionship, with tragicomic results. An excerpt from Janice Galloway's The Trick Is to Keep Breathing is the oblique testament of a woman edging toward despair. Alison Fell's "There's Tradition for You" is an absorbing monologue in the stream-of-consciousness vein. More conventional writers also have a place in the collection: Duncan Williamson's "Mary and the Seal" revisits a traditional folktale, and Brian McCabe's "Not About the Kids" employs a classic story arc, following a family man who wanders into strange territory. Seeking as broad a sampling as possible, Kravitz has chosen to include a staggering 47 writers, which guarantees some variation in quality and makes certain selections so short they barely leave an impression. Still, this collection testifies to the power and broad reach of the current generation of Scottish writers. (Dec.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly