RESULTS

Suiting form to subject, Rodge Glass has brought the inventive techniques of Gray's fiction to bear on the biographer's role. Mixing a chronological narrative of his subject's life (at the rate of one chapter per decade) with his own diaries of meeting, getting to know and working with the artist, writer and campaigner, narrative and diaries eventually dovetail in a riotous final chapter on the publication of Alasdair Gray's latest novel, Old Men in Love, in October 2007.

Alasdair Gray's Lanark established him as one of the most significant writers of his generation. His most recent book is an innovative, mischievous and occasionally melancholy collection of short stories that plays with language, character and plot to explore those on the margins of society, the decrepit and those nearing the end of their lives. 'He is one of the most gifted writers who have put pen to paper in the English language.' The Guardian

Alasdair Gray's new novel Old Men in Love, exhibits all of those faintly preposterous foibles that make him a writer more loved than prized. The bulk of the text constitutes the posthumous papers of a recondite - yet venal - retired Glaswegian schoolmaster, named John Tunnock (as in the celebrated tea cake), that have, seemingly, been edited and collated by Gray himself. This literary subterfuge serves to fool no one who needs fooling, yet will satisfy all who believe that the truth can be found more exactly in chance occurrences, serendipity, and the eggy scrapings from the breakfast plates of the neglected, than any crude, linear naturalism. Tunnock is a beguiling figure, at once feisty and fusty. His historical fictions chivvy us into Periclean Athens, Renaissance Italy and then bury our noses in the ordure of sanctity given off by charismatic Victorian religious sectaries. Excursions into geological time are placed in counterpoint to diaristic jottings describing Tunnock's own erotic misadventures and the millennial trivia of the Anthony Linton Blair Government's final five years.

Written for the 1992 General Election, this book examined the poor state of present-day Scotland, gave a history of the Scottish people and their relations with the rulers of England, and argued that Scotland should have a strong government elected by its own people. It is five years later and Scotland still does not have that and its state has worsened.The original chapters have been revised and largely rewritten. New chapters dealing with Scottish education, land-owning and law, and the Labour Party bring the arguments to date. Intending to persuade people who feel their vote does not much influence how their country is managed, the book emphasizes that Scottish independence does matter. Selected for World Book Day 2003 - Scotland.