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Book Cover for: 1982, Janine, Alasdair Gray

1982, Janine

Alasdair Gray

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.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Canongate Books
  • Publish Date: Feb 5th, 2019
  • Pages: 352
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.70in - 5.10in - 1.00in - 0.55lb
  • EAN: 9781786893963
  • Categories: General

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."

Praise for this book

"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"
"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"