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Product Description
Product Description
Tam Clay, 1960s Glasgow slum-dweller, father-in-waiting and wordsmith manque, stumbles through the drink-sodden world of the Gorbals underclass on a mini-odyssey of self-discovery. This first novel won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.
From the Back Cover
'Swing Hammer Swing! is a great novel' James Kelman
'A gamey, pungent, vulgar sprawl of a novel, somewhere in that hinterland where Damon Runyon meets James Joyce' Robert Carver, Observer
'This tale of a week in the life of Tam Clay, Gorbals slum-dweller, father-in-waiting, and wordsmith manque, is funny from beginning to end...As Tam stumbles through the drink-sodden world of the Gorbals underclass of the sixties, when a house in Castlemilk was an ambition, he embarks on a mini-odyssey of self-discovery while blinding the reader with literary legerdemain' Ian Black, The Herald
'Swing Hammer Swing!' is a seriously good novel. Critics have rightly claimed that he does for Glasgow what James Joyce did for Dublin' Stephen Pile, Daily Telegraph
'A crazily good read...this fantastic first novel' Miranda France, Scotland on Sunday
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Fortunately I have a copy of a Scots Dictionary. You will need it for this book if you are a sassenach like me.Oh but it is worth the effort. The author notices the tiny details of a grim and grotty life and renders them poetic and spellbinding. I remember reading that Jeff Torrington used to work for British Leyland at Linwood (no more) and this was his life's work. He is a perfectionist. Glasgow is a marvellous and a terrible city and this is a novel to match it.Rabbie Burns with Brylcreem. Dark humour, sten gun dialogue and dollops of emotion like hot metal dropped all over you. I adore it.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A week in the life of Tommy Clay (and MacDougall) of sixties Gorbals, Glasgow, is a very funny yet almost plot less romp around. Without spoiling the plot less plot, it ends finally where the shrinkage of the image perspective becomes hard to bear. For `Tam', feels like he is a helpless cartoon figure, who is trapped in a scenery whirl around of repeater trees and born again boulders. A word of warning here though, for those of you (like me) are not into the `speak', it is not easy getting a handle on this. It took about one hundred pages to get there for me. Do not give up the effort is well worth it.
Format:Paperback
Genious! Pure brilliance from start to finish. Made me laugh out loud so many times. Buy this book - you'll relish every sentence.
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