Dirt Road
- 3 Aug 2017
- 9781782118251
- £8.99
- 384 pp
- 129×198mm
- 14 Jul 2016
- 9781782118244
- £7.19
- 320 pp
In a few words
From the Booker Prize-winning James Kelman, ‘Dirt Road is about coming of age, grief and the folk music of the American deep south’ Daily Telegraph
In a few words
From the Booker Prize-winning James Kelman, comes a road trip through the American South
Dirt Road is brilliant . . . a deeply moving and exciting novel
Roddy Doyle
A brilliantly understated tale about coming of age, grief and the folk music of the American deep south . . . poignant and beautiful *****
Dirt Road is brilliant . . . a deeply moving and exciting novel
Roddy Doyle
Kelman in the American South, with a zydeco lilt, proves irresistible - a thrilling return from one of our most essential novelists
Kevin Barry
More about
the book
Shortlisted for Saltire Fiction Book of the Year 2016
‘A celebration of what it is to be human’ Spectator
Murdo, a teenager obsessed with music, dreams of a life beyond home. His recently widowed dad, Tom, stumbles towards the future, terrified of losing what remains of his family. Both are in search of something as they set out from rural Scotland on a journey to the American South.
More about
the book
‘The truth is he didn’t care how long he was going away. Forever would have suited him. It didn’t matter it was America.’
Murdo, a teenager obsessed with music, wishes for a life beyond the constraints of his Scottish island home and dreams of becoming his own man.Tom, battered by loss, stumbles backwards towards the future, terrified of losing his dignity, his control, his son and the last of his family life. Both are in search of something new as they set out on an expedition into the American South. On the road we discover whether the hopes of youth can conquer the fears of age.Dirt Road is a major novel exploring the brevity of life, the agonising demands of love and the lure of the open road.
It is also a beautiful book about the power of music and all that it can offer. From the understated serenity of Kelman’s prose – like a Hibernian Carver – emerges a devastating emotional power.
A delight . . . The best thing [Kelman] has written
Allan Massie
ScotsmanIn Dirt Road James Kelman brings alive a human consciousness like no other writer can
Alan Warner
Another masterpiece from one of our best writers
Kirsty Gunn
GuardianKelman in the American South, with a zydeco lilt, proves irresistible - a thrilling return from one of our most essential novelists
Kevin Barry
In writing as pure as this, language becomes the very bones and meat of the characters. I am not transported by these sentences into Murdo's world; I am Murdo
Ross Raisin
Strange and beautiful . . . Kelman gives us visceral vernacular, Joycean stream of consciousness, wry humor, old resentments and painful memories, all in counterpoint to the music on and off stage . . . A celebration of what it is to be human
Beautiful. Dirt Road is about coming of age, grief and the folk music of the American deep south
Draws you like a magnet
James Kelman
View profileJames Kelman was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989 with A Disaffection, which also won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. He then went on to win the Booker Prize five years later with How Late It Was, How Late, before being shortlisted twice for the Man Booker International Prize, in 2009 and 2011. Dirt Road was shortlisted for the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year in 2016. His most recent book of stories, That Was a Shiver, is published by Canongate in 2017.
James Kelman
View profileJames Kelman was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989 with A Disaffection, which also won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. He then went on to win the Booker Prize five years later with How Late It Was, How Late, before being shortlisted twice for the Man Booker International Prize, in 2009 and 2011. Dirt Road was shortlisted for the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year in 2016. His most recent book of stories, That Was a Shiver, is published by Canongate in 2017.
