- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd (5 April 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1841959294
- ISBN-13: 978-1841959290
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13.5 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 820,603 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
The Times
'Manages to be tough-hearted and tender-minded, but also drop-dead
funny.'
funny.'
Niall Griffiths
'Funny, moving, gripping, magical and tragic. A brilliant debut.'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A slice of life...,
By
This review is from: Fresh (Paperback)
What a great read. A quick read? Sure. An easy read? That too. Simplistic? Not so sure about that, lots of well observed detail about Scottish working class life, about growing up as a man, about work and love and fear and family. Lost of depth there, explored in lots of levels.
I had one heartsink moment when I thought the author was going to take a well-trodden route so I put the book down, but steeled myself, and was delighted that he'd found another way. I don't know whether you'd have to be a Scot to really get the book. Certainly there's a lot of Glesga patter, and the distinctive humour is both cruel and affectionate. I found myself caring a lot about Sean and getting caught up in his situation, wondering how, if, he was going to resolve it. Only afterwards did I catch on to the tension between the different solutions on offer: The nice, official, civilised, legal or the scarier, rougher, more macho...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
pretty funny,
By Tito K (Edinburgh) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fresh (Paperback)
thankfully not too many chicken jokes in this wonderfully amusing and lightly satirical look at how truly appalling life can get. A genuinely new voice and thankfully not too heavy on the scottish patois. I read it in one sitting and laughed out loud. took about a week to get rid of the smell of death from my mind and since jamie olivers shown us what goes on in the life of chickens I doubt I'll be touching the beasts again.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, realistic, scary, but with real heart,
By sokolova (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fresh (Paperback)
This book cost me a night's sleep. The narrative was so vivid and compelling that I could not put it down. And it's full of surprises and exciting action scenes of unbelievable dramatic tension. The two brothers, gentle Sean and brutal Archie, could be so alike, but are very different. For me, the development of the male personality and psyche was the most interesting aspect of the book. In contrast, the female characters such as Maggie are less well fleshed out and I was left wondering what is was about her that Sean loved so much. The scenes involving the boy's mother were truly touching and almost the only occasion in the book when there was any sentimentality. There were a lot of brilliant 1980s cameos and their diet was so poor it's a wonder that any of them could survive, although no doubt this is all true to life. The description of chopping up and electrocuting chickens in the eponymous factory could create a new generation of vegetarians. Reading a book where the dialogue is almost all in Glaswegian dialect is hard work for a non-native, but definitely worth it...
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