The Glasgow Coma Scale
Published on 17. July 2014
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-4721-1268-2 (ISBN)
Description
Lynne is a young woman who once dreamed of being an artist, but whose promotion to supervisor at a call-centre in Glasgow is sucking the soul out of her.
When Lynne hands a fiver to a homeless man on the street in town one day, she is shocked to recognise Angus - her former art teacher on whom she once had a crush. What on earth could have reduced him to life on the street? In a gesture of uncharacteristic rashness, she invites him home.
So begins The Glasgow Coma Scale. Set against the gentrification of Scotland's second city, this is a taut, ticklish, tender and truly unexpected story of art, of the city, of feelings, and about the redemptive power of an unconventional kind of love.
When Lynne hands a fiver to a homeless man on the street in town one day, she is shocked to recognise Angus - her former art teacher on whom she once had a crush. What on earth could have reduced him to life on the street? In a gesture of uncharacteristic rashness, she invites him home.
So begins The Glasgow Coma Scale. Set against the gentrification of Scotland's second city, this is a taut, ticklish, tender and truly unexpected story of art, of the city, of feelings, and about the redemptive power of an unconventional kind of love.
Reviews / Votes
Neil Stewart is the kind of writer who appears once in a generation, gifts fully-formed. Through the unforgettable duo of Angus and Lynne, he takes us to places where other novels fear to tread, from the perils of life on a park bench through the murky grey areas of love to the ineffable mysteries of art. Compassionate, brave, singing with life, The Glasgow Coma Scale is an outstanding debut from an extraordinary talent. -- Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies Unfailingly stylish, intelligent, witty and affecting. Neil Stewart's talent is prodigious and extravagant. -- Neel Mukherjee, author of The Lives of Others An excellent debut. -- Lee Rourke, author of The Canal and Vulgar Things An assured, original, witty first novel, with a rapidly changing Glasgow as one of the main characters. -- Kate Saunders * The Times * Brutally told, rich in Glaswegian argot... Stewart has fun hoodwinking those readers who might expect this to be a different type of story; instead, a cacophony of voices entwine like individual threads of a wider tapestry, to create a beautiful portrait of longing and loss. * New Humanist * An intriguing debut, capturing the psyches of two very different people as they look sidelong at the reasons their lives haven't gone quite as well as they'd hoped. -- Galen O'Hanlon * The Skinny * Jumps right off the page to challenge, provoke and, in the broadest sense of the term, entertain at every turn. -- Gregor White * Stirling Observer * Startlingly brilliant. * The List *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Dimensions
Height: 155 mm
Width: 218 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
392 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4721-1268-2 (9781472112682)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Neil D.A. Stewart was born in Glasgow in 1978 and lives in London. He was educated at the University of Glasgow and holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. He is the arts editor of the online magazine Civilian and works as a freelance proofreader for Tate Publishing.