Docherty
Published on 3. November 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-1-78211-961-6 (ISBN)
Description
'His face made a fist at the world. The twined remnant of umbilicus projected vulnerably. Hands, feet and prick. He had come equipped for the job.'
Newborn Conn Docherty, raw as a fresh wound, lies between his parents in their tenement room, with no birthright but a life's labour in the pits of his small town. But the world is changing, and, lying next to him, Conn's father Tam has decided that his son's life will be different from his own.
Gritty, dark and tender, McIlvanney's Docherty is a modern classic.
Newborn Conn Docherty, raw as a fresh wound, lies between his parents in their tenement room, with no birthright but a life's labour in the pits of his small town. But the world is changing, and, lying next to him, Conn's father Tam has decided that his son's life will be different from his own.
Gritty, dark and tender, McIlvanney's Docherty is a modern classic.
Reviews / Votes
Intense, witty and beautifully wrought * * Telegraph * * He has a hard muscular quality to his writing . . . His phrases hammer against you like a collier's pick * * The Times * * Here a human history is mined with humour and a clenching sense of its sombre inequities: man's squat but lengthening shadow in the sun * * Guardian * * William McIlvanney paints a world of harsh reality, but does so in language that is strangely beautiful and hauntingly poetic. His work defies pigeonholing in any genre: this is simply great writing from a master of his craft -- CRAIG RUSSELL A serious, considered and achingly sympathetic engagement with the people whose only trace in historical record is birth and dead notices * * Scotsman * *More details
Series
Edition
Main - Canons Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Canongate Books
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
288 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78211-961-6 (9781782119616)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Persons
William McIlvanney's first novel, Remedy is None, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and with Docherty he won the Whitbread Award for Fiction. Laidlaw and The Papers of Tony Veitch both gained Silver Daggers from the Crime Writers' Association. Strange Loyalties, the third in the Detective Laidlaw trilogy, won the Glasgow Herald's People's Prize. He died in December 2015.