1982, Janine - by Alasdair Gray (Paperback)

About the Book

Alasdair Gray's unforgettable second novel. Introduced by Will Self

Book Synopsis

Jock McLeish, failed husband, lover and businessman is alone in a hotel room, drinking whisky, fantasizing about sex and contemplating suicide. As he tries to distance himself from reality, his lonely, alcohol-fuelled fantasies are interrupted by a flood of memories, reminding him of his own shortcomings. An unforgettably imaginative book, deeply experimental in its form and charged with a dark humor, 1982, Janine is a searing portrait of male need and inadequacy. Gray's exploration of politics, religion, powerlessness and pornography has lost none of its power to shock and entertain.

Review Quotes

"1982, Janine has a verbal energy, an intensity of vision that has mostly been missing from the English novel since D.H. Lawrence . . . Gray is a natural storyteller."-- "--New York Times"

"Alasdair Gray's books have transformed the possibilities of the novel and 1982, Janine...is one of his most powerful, a perfecting of his combination of anarchy, politeness and lyricism, his philosophical understanding of the epic quotidian and his good-natured existentialism. It remakes the novel and it's never going to not be a really unputdownable read."-- "-- "Books That Were Ahead of their Time," Ali Smith, The New Statesman"

"Lanark is widely and justifiably regarded as Gray's masterpiece. But I love this novel and its protagonist; masturbating, alcoholic, conservative Jock. It shows the dismal outcome of a life that succumbs to fear, but is still somehow an uplifting book."-- "--"My 10 Favorite Books," Irvine Welsh, New York Times"

About the Author

Since 1981, when Lanark was published by Canongate, Alasdair Gray has published a great number of books, most of them novels and short stories. In his own words, "Alasdair Gray is a fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glaswegian pedestrian who has mainly lived by writing and designing books, most of them fiction."