Review Praise for Dirt Road Shortlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year award A "What to Read Right Now" selection in Vanity Fair "A kid is trying to overcome his grief without forgetting about it: a contradiction that serves more generally for what's involved in being an immigrant, or in growing up. And Dirt Road is about all of those things." --Benjamin Markovitz, The New York Times Book Review "Modernist stream of consciousness lives on in the brilliant Dirt Road. . . a narrative as epic as it is quotidian." --Boston Globe "A powerful meditation on loss, life, death, and the bond between father and son. . . . Kelman has created a fully-realized, relatable voice that reveals a young man's urgent need for connection in a time of grief." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Beautifully rendered. . . . A rich tale of family, dislocation, the joys of creativity, and the torment of painful choices." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Kelman has written a moving tribute to the unbreakable bond between fathers and sons." --Booklist (starred review) "A stirring coming-of-age story, Dirt Road is an examination of family bonds, loss and the power of music." --Read It Forward "Kelman's writing remains exhilarating and extraordinarily intimate. . . . [A] brilliant and original novel. . . . Dirt Road offers a paean to zydeco and accordion music and to the gritty lives of musicians, but as in Kelman's other books, early and late, underneath it all is a ferocious and infectious kind of love." --Rain Taxi "Dirt Road is brilliant, a deeply moving and exciting novel. I've always admired Kelman's work and this had me gripped. I felt I was standing beside Murdo right through the book, and he was great, big, loveable, irritating, wonderful company." --Roddy Doyle, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha "Kelman in the American South, with a zydeco lilt, proves irresistible--a thrilling return from one of our most essential novelists." --Kevin Barry, author of Beatlebone "In Dirt Road James Kelman brings alive a human consciousness like no other writer can." --Alan Warner, author of Morvern Callar "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, author of God's Own Country "Dirt Road is a strange and beautiful thing. . . . It tenderly explores grief and loss and a lonely boy's passion for accordion music. . . . 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. And there's love. A celebration of what it is to be human." --Lee Langley, The Spectator "Kelman is one of the most influential writers of his generation, described by Amit Chaudhuri as 'the greatest living British novelist' and an acknowledged influence on Alan Warner, Kirsty Gunn and Irvine Welsh. . . . He conveys with great poignancy the intractable silences and clumsy negotiations of intimacy between Murdo and his father Tom, both wounded by grief and loss following the death of Murdo's mother." --Libby Brooks, The Guardian "Poignant and beautiful." --Daily Telegraph "A beautifully-coloured account of loss and love. . . .One of Kelman's gifts as a writer is his ability to describe the world as perceived by his protagonist without resorting to a first-person narrative. 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." --Mike Wade, The Times (U.K.) "The bond between a father and son is at the heart of James Kelman's novel, the beautiful and musical Dirt Road. . . .It is filled with more light and less dark humor than Kelman's previous books." --Nick Major, The National (Scotland) "The intensity of this novel, as with all of Kelman's, draws you like a magnet. . . .There is anger here, about world politics, religion, gun culture, and the oppression of the poor, but Kelman, for the past three decades our most exciting novelist, trains his deepest insights and fury on a young man trying to understand death. . . .For a story that takes place across a fortnight in which for the most part very little happens, Dirt Road is alive with anticipation." --Rosemary Goring, Herald Scotland "In Dirt Road we see Kelman continuing to show how human experience can be energized and renewed by its modest scale, not flattened by it into a stereotype. It is another masterpiece from one of our best writers." --Kirsty Gunn, The Guardian "Poignant and beautiful. . . .This brilliant understated novel ends as it began, with Tom again trying to get Murdo out the door: 'Half six son ye better get up.'" --Anthony Cummins, Independent "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." --Sarah Crown, The Times Literary Supplement "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." --Grace McCleen, The Observer "So you've no duty to read Kelman's new novel, but you'll be missing something very good if you don't, for Dirt Road may well be the best thing he has written. . . . Absorbing and delightful . . . listen to it and be enriched." --Allan Massie, The Scotsman "The seeming lightness of the novel's slim plot is freighted with meaning. . . . The hopeful spirit in which Kelman allows Murdo to traverse both his grief and his adventure on the road makes for an engrossing and moving coming-of-age tale." --Carl Wilkinson. The Financial Times "The Glasgow-born author can offer striking insight into the workings of a human mind, illustrated with an empathy that is perhaps rarely seen in real life." --Rebecca Myers, The Times (UK) "This Man Booker-winning author is hugely influential for good reason: his writing is vibrant and alive, effortlessly overheard and keenly observed, in a way many novels aspire to be and few achieve." --Cameron Woodhead, The Sydney Morning Herald About the Author James Kelman was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989 with his novel 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 both 2009 and 2011. He has taught at the University of Texas, Austin, and San José State University in California. Kelman was born in Glasgow, Scotland, where he currently lives.
M**N
Go Murdo!
Murdo’s mother has died. His sister died a few years earlier, both of some kind of genetic cancer. It only affects the women.Murdo and his Dad Tommy have decided to spend some time away from their home on the west coast of Scotland. They have gone to stay with Uncle John in Alabama. They arrive in Memphis Airport after a gruelling journey via Glasgow and Amsterdam; Murdo has forgotten his phone and Dad has forgotten his driving licence. They head for the buses. They don’t talk much and when they do, they seem to be treading on eggshells. It seems destined to be a long holiday.Murdo is very self-absorbed. He seems to live in a dreamworld where other people and the practicalities of life don’t exist. Changing buses in Allentown, an almost exclusively black town in northern Mississipi, Murdo is distracted in the lavatory and so goes off on a wander up the street. The connection is missed so Murdo and Tommy have to bunk down for the night in the local motel, waiting for tomorrow’s bus. This gives Murdo a chance to wander some more and stumble across a family playing music in their backyard. The vibe is like nothing Murdo has heard before. He has discovered Queen Monzee-ay, zydeco queen of the accordion – who also happens to have a very pretty granddaughter Sarah…… so Murdo picks up an accordion – the instrument he plays in a Highland band in Scotland – and joins in. He is so good that Queen Monzee-ay suggests he plays with her in a festival in Lafayette the weekend after next. Murdo would love to, but doesn’t know how to ask his father. This provides the narrative drive for the rest of the novel and, particularly, for a gruesome couple of weeks holed up with Uncle John in smalltown Alabama, eating bland food, walking the shopping mall for entertainment and being forced to endure The Gathering – an awful assembly of plastic Scots singing racist anthems and telling tales of fiery crosses back in the ancestral Homeland.Dirt Road had the potential to be maudlin, but instead it took a path that was uplifting. Murdo is a shy boy who has led a sheltered life that seems to have been largely devoid of passion. He feels a strong need to please his father even when it comes at the expense of his own personal wellbeing.Murdo has the power to be frustrating – just a little too quiet and insular. He has a tendency to make self-centred decisions that take insufficient account of other people’s feelings. However, he clearly has a charm because the reader hopes that he comes good in the end, and the reader winces each time he makes a move that might hinder him in his quest. He is unhurried and sometimes seems guileless. Yet underneath it all is a determination when it really matters. Murdo will not pretend to share the values of religious bigotry of those around him. Whilst he is appalled when it is suggested he might be joking – the implication being that joking is rude and frivolous – he will call Dad and Uncle John on their racism. He seems comfortable in his own skin and has a self-confidence that is strong for all it is not demonstrative. This seduces the true artists and musicians he meets along the Dirt Road, and it seduces the reader. Go Murdo!
A**R
Tedious
Laborious to read.
C**R
Soots in America
Good ,wholesome enjoyable story of how grief for a son and father turn into great opportunities.Scottish based then American,easy to follow and heart warming.
J**.
great item.
purchased as a gift, great item.
F**N
A great book that gladdens the heart without being too sickly ...
A great book that gladdens the heart without being too sickly sweet. The words leap from the page and the characters are all there in your minds eye from the off. I loved it!
G**Y
In my opinion, Kelman's best novel by far. A slow burner that will, emotionally, grab you by the lapels and shake you up.
This is a slow slow burner which is best if you hang on in there because it becomes an enriching emotional journey that you won't forget. It's the only novel that, at parts, has made me cry I'm not ashamed to say. It deals with manly relationships, West of Scotland style, and in its main character, Murdo, whose using of music as a conduit for his emotions and expressiveness, we are taken on a journey inside his head, that I for one, could connect with on a variety of levels. This story of a young boy Murdo (16 year old) and his father, Tom, both of whom are battling to accept their lives minus Murdo's mum and sister who both passed leaving the boy, man, to their own emotional devices.
C**N
Fantastically pointless
Kelman's writing style sucks you in and even though his storylines never go far they don't have to because every page is a great page. Genius.
C**N
Convincing and authentic
I wasn't sure what to expect when I began 'Dirt Road', having never read any of James Kelman's other novels, and at first I found the style slightly jarring. It's certainly not for everyone. Kelman writes in what is essentially a stream of consciousness style, with a fluid approach to grammar and punctuation that, in my opinion, superbly reflects the inner workings of Murdo's mind.The plot is thin and in many ways the least important part of the novel. Murdo and his father are grief stricken and unable to communicate following the death of both Murdo's mother and his sister; they together leave their Scottish island for a holiday with relatives in the American south. What follows is a classic coming-of-age tale, where Murdo learns to stand on his own two feet, to follow his passion in life, and father and son learn to communicate once again. So far nothing ground breaking.What really sets this novel apart is the superb characterisation. Murdo is a flawed yet lovable, passionate, curious, thoughtful and fully three-dimensional character. Once I adapted to the style I felt wholly absorbed in Murdo's head and his perspective. Everything is viewed in this way - even the lack of quotation marks round dialogue gives it a feel of existing through the lens of Murdo's mind, rather than 'out there'. It is hard not to fall in love with Murdo and desperately want him to succeed in his quest of playing music with his new-found friends. The communication roadblock between him and his father is at times heartbreaking Little is said and their shared grief is mostly left unspoken.As mentioned, the style is not for everyone. We are often given a minute-by-minute account of Murdo's every action, no matter how mundane. But in my opinion this served to heighten the sense of reality - afterall, this is how life is lived, minute by minute. So convinced was I in the minutiae of Murdo's world, I regularly forgot this was fiction and not a real account. I also found that the novel is gripped by a sense of tension, and it is a sign of the author's skill that the source of this tension is not fully clear (apart from the more obvious aspects such as when Murdo causes them to miss the bus and gets a telling off from his dad.)A unique and convincing read. I would highly recommend it to those who enjoy absorbing and authentic character studies.
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2 months ago
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