- Paperback: 496 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd; First Edition edition (3 Feb 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0224059963
- ISBN-13: 978-0224059961
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.6 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,266,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
With such classics as Generation X and Trainspotting, notions of generational angst are still a fertile breeding ground of forceful expression for authors. Now we have Grits, a complex debut from Niall Griffiths, in which the lives of a group of disenfranchised loners are laid bare as they confront their own anger at society and the ruin it has made of their lives.
Set in the socially complex late 1990s, these drifters meet in a small coastal village in West Wales, brought there as they attempt to escape their various addictions (drugs, alcohol, crime, promiscuity) and find a place where they can dissect and extract meaning from their damaged lives. The setting of the novel is an intriguing premise in itself: an isolated village, wedged between two of natures more inhospitable locales, the sea and mountains. It is a cunning tool, reinforcing the trapped nature of these lives, no matter the reasons they ended up there. Equally successful is Griffith's use of language: each of the characters narrative is written in a "phonetic" style, which allows their personalities and emotions to erupt from the page:
Evil is not an amorphous, anonymous fing; it has a house an a family, it eats breakfast, it wears certain clowthes an squirms tentacles in ta every aspect av ya life. It will neva give in ... Right now, someone is lacing up their polished black shoes and double-checking your address. Run.It makes it hard-going but perseverance yields effective results. Though it lacks the full-on deviant humour of Trainspotting, Grits certainly shares that book's incisive and gritty glimpse into a potent underclass who have willingly embraced an ideology of disenchantment, expressed through petty addictions and fuelled by relentless anger. An exciting debut that will appeal to the legions of people who feel such pain to whatever degree. --Danny Graydon
Review
"An astonishing feat -- pulsing on every page with the unmistakable brilliance, authenticity and spirit of a magnificently gifted writer." --Irvine Welsh
"Any fan of "Trainspotting" will find "Grits" persuasive, alarming and addictive."--"The Times" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
"Any fan of "Trainspotting" will find "Grits" persuasive, alarming and addictive."--"The Times" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the best book I've read - by a mile - for absolutely ages, maybe years.
It helps if you've actually heard the regional accents that inform the phonetic style of the writing before (there's a Liverpudlian, a girl from Yorkshire, an Essex boy and a few Welsh characters, so I imagine, say, an American reader would find it really hard going) - but if you have, you'll crack through the different snapshot-stories as if it were your own inner monologue you were listening to. The characters really do LEAP off the page at you, too - what makes the book so powerful is that you can begin to accept their motivations just the way they explain them to themselves, until you glimpse the same events from another point of view.
It's not all grit and grime, either, and even the worst folk in the story sometimes have a warmth to them. Disco-ball flicking from one scene to the next weaves each character's story tightly to the others.
I can't recommend it enough.
It helps if you've actually heard the regional accents that inform the phonetic style of the writing before (there's a Liverpudlian, a girl from Yorkshire, an Essex boy and a few Welsh characters, so I imagine, say, an American reader would find it really hard going) - but if you have, you'll crack through the different snapshot-stories as if it were your own inner monologue you were listening to. The characters really do LEAP off the page at you, too - what makes the book so powerful is that you can begin to accept their motivations just the way they explain them to themselves, until you glimpse the same events from another point of view.
It's not all grit and grime, either, and even the worst folk in the story sometimes have a warmth to them. Disco-ball flicking from one scene to the next weaves each character's story tightly to the others.
I can't recommend it enough.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Quite simply an amazing feat of literature. Sums up the angst and the desires and fears that characterise the forgotten people of society - the people that actually live life, those who are forced to deal with the very worst, but also the most real aspects of a system devoid of compassion and filled with hate. It is a glimspe into the world that intermingles with that of the priviliged people but is never seen. An eye opening and ultimately life affirming novel. And as an aber local, it makes it even more real...
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a great book - great characters, great prose, and a realistic take on life in the aber area. Makes trainspotting appear limp in comparison. His writing on taking drugs is frighteningly accurate, look forward to his next book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
It rocks!
I picked this up by chance and it turned out to be the best novel I read in 2004. The books' real strength lies in its vivid characterisation; each section has a different narrator... Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2005 by A. M. Bryan
Mashed Potato
This book reminds you how good and bad drugs binges can get. It makes you want to get wrecked but at the same time reminds you of the dirty side, horrible comedowns, scatty... Read more
Published on 1 July 2004 by "prestige4u"
Read this book now !
Niall Griffiths Grits is one of the best books I've ever read ,the characters seem too real for this book not to be based on real life experience . Read more
Published on 15 July 2003 by "jamiemojo"
An absolutely fantastic account of modern disillusionment.
To compare this book to Trainspotting is not to give it the justice that it deserves.
Strong characters with a dynamic writing style combine to make this the best piece of modern... Read more
Published on 20 July 2001 by paul.newton@mit-misys.com
Gripping
This book really pulls you in. In much the same tradition as Trainspotting Griffiths pulls you down even further and deeper into the underbelly of his addict's lives. Read more
Published on 3 Jun 2001
Gripping
This book really pulls you in. In much the same tradition as Trainspotting Griffiths pulls you down even further and deeper into the underbelly of his addict's lives. Read more
Published on 3 Jun 2001
Trainspotting revisited
Grits is a novel about a group of drug addicts who have found their way to a small town in Wales. The story itself has no plot, just the first person narrations by the addicts... Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2001
Trainspotting goes to Wales
My summary would have been the opposite if I read this book first. This book is very real and for me covered a number of issues. Read more
Published on 7 Aug 2000 by P. A. Buchan
Takes you to those places you may have been or might end up
It seems hard to be objective about this book. So much of what is presented and said will resonate with many people, to a lesser or greater extent. Read more
Published on 3 Jun 2000
A fantastic book , written with emotion and insight.
Niall Griffiths captures the Atmosphere of Aberystwyth, and the sence of isolation from of the world that the place provides. Read more
Published on 10 Feb 2000 by joscelincarson@aol.com
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