If It Is Your Life

by James Kelman

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction; Short Stories

Synopsis

A collection of short stories by the Booker Prize-winning Scottish master

Giving voice to the dispossessed and crafting stories of lives held in the balance, James Kelman reaches us all. Penetrating deeply into the hearts, minds, and desperation of characters who find themselves in everyday situations—in the hospital, at a bus stop, in a living room with the endless roar of the vacuum cleaner and a distant wife—Kelman follows their streams of consciousness and brings their worries to life. With honesty and dark humor, he confronts the issues of language, class, politics, gender, and age—identity in all its forms.

Release date: July 15, 2014

Publisher: Other Press

Print pages: 288

Sample

“Bangs & a Full Moon”
A fine Full Moon from the third storey through the red reflection from the city lights: this was the view. I gazed at it, lying outstretched on the bed-settee. I was thinking arrogant thoughts of that, Full Moons, and all those awful fucking writers who present nice images in the presupposition of universal fellowship under the western Stars when all of a sudden: BANG, an object hurtling out through the window facing mine across the street.
 
The windows on this side had been in total blackness; the building was soon to be demolished and formally uninhabited.
 
BANG. An object hurtled through another window. No lights came on. Nothing could be seen. Nobody was heard. Down below the street was deserted; broken glass glinted. I returned to the bed-settee and when I had rolled the smoke, found I already had one smouldering in the ashtray. I got back up again and closed the curtains. I was writing in pen & ink so not to waken the kids and wife with the banging of this machine I am now using.