Lanark
1981
- fiction
- young men
- working class
- city and town life
- artists
- literature
- fiction, fantasy, general
- fiction, coming of age
- fiction, dystopian
- scotland, fiction
The story
Lanark, a modern vision of hell set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, tells the interwoven stories of Lanark and Duncan Thaw. A work of extraordinary, playful imagination, it conveys a profound message, both personal and political, about humankind's inability to love, and yet our compulsion is to go on trying. First published in 1981, Lanark immediately established Gray as one of Britain's leading writers, compared with - among others - Dante, Blake, Joyce, Orwell, Kafka, Huxley and Lewis Carroll. This new edition includes an introduction by William Boyd as well as the author's fascinating addendum, the 'Tailpiece' (2001).
What it’s like
Dense, sooty, and deliberately uneven on the page: a Glasgow of rain-blackened tenements, shipyard rust and fluorescent institutional corridors, rendered in a voice that swings from gritty working-class realism to dream-logic fable and back again. Gray's illustrations and typographic oddities, from marginal drawings to abrupt shifts in layout, give the reading a hand-made, almost etched texture, and the sensory world is heavy with damp stone, cold light and bodies going slowly wrong. The mood is bleak but wry, a kind of grim comedy with real tenderness underneath, and the pace is uneven by design: long, slow stretches of interiority give way to sudden surreal jolts that keep the reader slightly off balance. It suits a long, unhurried stretch alone with a lamp and a cup of tea, or a patient reread when you want something that rewards attention. Its people are shaped by thwarted love and creative struggle, moving from despair toward a stubborn, hard-won hope. Violence is present but not gratuitous, with some sexual content and frank depictions of bodily decline and cruelty; it is intense and unsettling rather than gory. It is for readers who enjoy experimental, morally serious fiction, sprawling ambition, and the particular grit of urban Scotland.
More books like Lanark
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved Lanarkand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
