West Coast

by KateMuir (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.21

  One man's journey, from fatherless, poverty-stricken child growing up in an unlovely Scottish fishing village in the 70s, through teenage angst, falling in love, going to London, living in squats, a spot of male prostitution on the side, to fabulously wealthy, feted Young British Artist, the most notorious of his generation: WEST COAST is the unputdownable, epic story of Fergus MacFarlane. It's for anyone who has ever dreamed of escaping their small town, of making it big, of leaving everything behind...And what can happen to you when you get all of that and realise that perhaps, after all, it's not really worth it.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $3.21

  London, 2000 Fergus MacFarlane is a celebrated and celebrity Brit Art photographer partying in the heat of Noughties London. One night he returns to his beautiful house and his beautiful wife to discover ugly cracks in his life: he's falling apart, sleeping around and selling out. His past and his present are catching up with him. Who is he really? How did he get here? Scotland, 1978 Fergus is eight when his fisherman father drowns off the West Coast of Scotland. He is left in a damp tenement with his mother - and her resentment. The worst of the Seventies has hit the port of Burnoch: Leo Sayer, shagpile carpet, and Irn Bru for breakfast. In the wild landscape, Fergus searches for horizons beyond the narrow ones of the town and a way out. Follow Fergus from scabby-kneed schoolboy to ambitious artist, from a squat to a mansion, from rent boys to an aristocratic marriage, from Hebridean islands to Hoxton galleries, from Presbyterianism to hedonism. It's a journey through tragedy and comedy, haggis and sushi. Why did Fergus run from his past? And how does he get back? Kate Muir's unputdownable new novel is for everyone who ever lost their roots, and set out to find them again.