Alasdair Gray

A Secretary's Biography

By Rodge Glass

2008

First Published

3.86

Average Rating

352

Number of Pages

10H45M

Audio Length

'Alasdair Gray was not always the rapidly ageing, fat Glasgow pedestrian he likes to describe on the inside leaf of his books. There was once a time when he was young. A time when he was really rather thin. Many years when he went unpublished and unrecognised. This book aims to document, as faithfully as possible, that journey from son of a box-maker, encouraged to paint, write and do whatever made him feel good, to septuagenarian "little grey deity" (as Will Self has called him). For the first time in his life, Alasdair claims to be completely satisfied and well-paid (he lived in debt until 1990), and now lives a settled, happy day-to-day existence with Morag, painting his mural at the Oran Mor arts centre five minutes walk from his home most days, while (at the time of writing) taking occasional periods off for writing several books. Aside from work, Gray's pleasures include daytime whisky, giving money away, reading books by people he doesn't have to meet and "having my way". This book will look in depth at the people, events, books, paintings, plays, poems and circumstances that conspired to make the man as he is today.' RODGE GLASS 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.

Avg Rating

3.86

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

20%

4 STARS

54%

3 STARS

19%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Rodge Glass

Author · 6 books

Rodge Glass is the author of the novels No Fireworks (Faber, 2005) and Hope for Newborns (Faber, 2008), as well as Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography (Bloomsbury, 2008), which received a Somerset Maugham Award in 2009. Recently, he was co-author of the graphic novel Dougie’s War: A Soldier’s Story (Freight, 2010), which was nominated for several awards. He is currently a Programme Leader in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University, and was Associate Editor at Freight Books. His novel, Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs, was published in April 2012 by the multi-award winning Tindal Street Press, then as a paperback by Serpent’s Tail, and it appeared as Voglio la testa di Ryan Giggs in April 2013 (66thand2nd, Roma). His latest book, LoveSexTravelMusik, was published by Freight Books in April 2013 and was nominated for the International Frank O’Connor Award. His fiction has been published in Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Danish and Italian. (from http://rodgeglass.com/ )