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Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography

Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography

by RodgeGlass (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2009

    $7.69
Synopsis

Alasdair Gray, author of the modern classics Lanark, Poor Things and 1982, Janine, is without doubt Scotland's greatest living novelist. Since trying (unsuccessfully) to buy him a drink in 1998, Rodge Glass, first tutee and then secretary to the author, takes on the role of biographer, charting Gray's life from unpublished and unrecognised son of a box-maker to septuagenarian little grey deity (as Will Self has called him). A Jewish Mancunian Boswell to Gray's Johnson, Glass seamlessly weaves a chronological narrative of his subject's life into his own diary of meeting, getting to know and working with the artist, writer and campaigner, to create a vibrant and wonderfully textured portrait of a literary great.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 350
 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 21 Sep 2009
ISBN 10: 0747596239
ISBN 13: 9780747596233
Book Overview: Alasdair Gray has a devoted and loyal fan base. Rodge Glass has been inspired by Gray's work and the inventive approach to biography taken by Jonathan Coe in his Samuel Johnson Prize winning biography of B. S. Johnson, Like a Fiery Elephant. 'Glass is Gray's perfect biographer' Guardian

Media Reviews
'A story finely told ... Glass has produced a portrait that is critically intimate to the point of being genuinely, unashamedly loving' Prospect 'Alasdair Gray is spectacularly eccentric ... [This book] will ... delight the many devotees of the Gray cult' Financial Times 'A strange and nourishing stew' Time 'Honest and revealing, tender and, very unacademically, moving' The Herald
Author Bio
Rodge Glass is now a novelist (No Fireworks and Hope for Newborns, Faber, 2005 and 2008), but wasn't when he first encountered Gray in a Glasgow pub in 1998. Since then, while pursuing his own writing ambitions, he has filled many roles in the life of the writer/artist. He has taken dictation whenever and wherever asked: whether Gray is in bed, in hospital or drinking soup cold from the can, he is there with a pad or a laptop, awaiting instructions. He has been barman, tutee, secretary, signature forger, driver, researcher, advisor, chief technology negotiator, tea-maker and paper boy, with varying degrees of success. In this book Glass attempts one more role - biographer. Born in Manchester, he lives in Glasgow.