Old Bastards
Stevie Duffy
INDIE SCOTTISH BOOKSELLER
Out of stock
Author: Chris McQueer
£8.95 Original price was: £8.95.£5.00Current price is: £5.00.
Hings is a collection of surreal, sharp short fiction set in working-class Scotland and occasionally beyond, where recognisable characters grapple with absurd, witty twists on everyday life. For readers who enjoy inventive, darkly humorous contemporary fiction rooted in Scottish vernacular and inventive storytelling.
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Hings is the sort of book that makes you laugh, wince and wonder where Chris McQueer’s mind goes when nobody is watching. These short stories take ordinary Glasgow lives and…
Hings is the sort of book that makes you laugh, wince and wonder where Chris McQueer’s mind goes when nobody is watching. These short stories take ordinary Glasgow lives and push them somewhere ridiculous, usually before you have time to see it coming.
Sammy sharing a bag of whelks with his da becomes a family tragedy, a teenage art critic takes a Byres Road poser to meet “Banksy”, and enjoying a mild curry can get you shot by the Korma Police. My favourite thing is how seriously everyone treats the madness. The characters never feel like they are waiting for a punchline, which makes the turns even funnier.
Written in Glaswegian Scots, Hings is filthy, surreal and easy to fly through. Beneath the chaos, McQueer has a real eye for loneliness, class and people trying to find somewhere they belong. It is funny Scottish writing with its own voice.
As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.
From the streets of working class Scotland, and sometimes a little beyond our solar system, this debut gathers stories that bend the everyday into something stranger. Chris McQueer writes with a surreal edge, twisting familiar situations until they tilt, and filling them with characters who feel instantly recognisable, whether you want to keep them close or cross the road to avoid them.
Peter has earned his night off and will not cover Shelley’s shift, but he needs the right pals for a believable story. Deek is set on making his mark in outsider art, with Banksy sized ambition. Davie is devoted to tattoos, certain the next one will be a masterpiece. Tam sees himself as one of the galaxy’s great minds, but parallel universes come with their own mess. Elsewhere, everyone wakes to find their knees on backwards.
The humour comes from how close these lives sit to the real, even when the world turns inside out.
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Modern Literary Fiction
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Modern Literary Fiction
Modern Literary Fiction
Modern Literary Fiction
Modern Literary Fiction
Modern Literary Fiction
Modern Literary Fiction
Crime & Mystery