giovannigf 's review for:

How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman

5.0

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This is an excellent novel (don’t take it from me – it won the Booker Prize) about a lowlife drunk and the indignities he suffers trying to get welfare. That it’s written in an accent would usually get on my nerves fast, but Kelman is simply too good. Here’s how it starts: “Ye wake in a corner and stay there hoping yer body will disappear, the thoughts smothering ye; these thoughts; but ye want to remember and face up to things, just something keeps ye from doing it, why can ye no do it; the words filling yer head: then the other words; there’s something wrong; there’s something far far wrong; ye’re no a good man, ye’re just no a good man.”