‘A superb collection: a series of brief lives which McIlvanney passes through the eye of a very sharp needle’ Literary Review
These are the stories of the casualties of social and emotional struggle, who defy defeat with humour, resilience and inspiring faith in their dreams. The walking wounded.
These are the stories of ordinary people.
“A sad, brilliant, joyful tribute to the dreams that never make it”
sunday Express
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“McIlvanney’s great skill lies not only in illuminating those fleeting events which hint at, or embody greater truths, but in evoking an entire life within the compass of a few hundred words”
sunday Times
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.