Dirt Road

Dirt Road is brilliant . . . a deeply moving and exciting novel (RODDY DOYLE)Kelman in the American South, with a zydeco lilt, proves irresistible - a thrilling return from one of our most essential novelists (KEVIN BARRY)Beautiful. Dirt Road is about coming of age, grief and the folk music of the American deep south ( Daily Telegraph )Strange and beautiful . . . Kelman gives us visceral vernacular, Joycean stream of consciousness, wry humor, old resentments and painful memories, all in counterpoint to the music on and off stage . . . A celebration of what it is to be human ( Spectator )Poignant and beautiful ( Independent )A true original . . . A real artist (IRVINE WELSH Guardian )Quietly, subtly Kelman peels back the veil of daily life to reveal the urgent struggle of a sixteen-year-old coming to terms with death. This is a brilliant book, and like all great works of art, it is universal-whether you're reading it in Scotland, Hampstead, or Alabama ( Times Literary Supplement )A beautifully-coloured account of loss and love . . . Like a camera on Murdo's shoulder, we see the world as the boy sees it, sensing the miracle of his emergence as a confident young man ( The Times )A delight . . . The best thing [Kelman] has written (ALLAN MASSIE Scotsman )A writer of world stature, a 21st century Modern ( Scotsman )Probably the most influential novelist of the post-war period ( The Times ) Dirt Road is a life-affirming novel, in which Kelman paints a convincing and at times moving portrait of two likable characters on the road to fulfillment and recovery ( Observer )Draws you like a magnet ( Herald Scotland )The greatest British novelist of our time ( Sunday Herald )One of the most influential writers of his generation ( Guardian )The greatest living British novelist ( Amit Chaudhuri )To call him a great Scottish writer would be accurate; to call him simply a great writer would be more concise ( Herald )In Dirt Road James Kelman brings alive a human consciousness like no other writer can (ALAN WARNER)Beautiful and musical (Nick Major The National )In writing as pure as this, language becomes the very bones and meat of the characters. I am not transported by these sentences into Murdo's world; I am Murdo (ROSS RAISIN)Another masterpiece from one of our best writers (KIRSTY GUNN Guardian ) James Kelman was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989 with A Disaffection , which also won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. He went on to win the Booker Prize five years later with How Late It Was, How Late , before being shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2009 and 2011.