Something Leather is about the love lives of June, Senga, Donalda and a distant cousin of a queen from 1963 to 1990. Also in it are unhappy children, a dangerously liberal headmistress, a tobacconist’s family, a student, nightwatchman, pimp, businessman, boilerman, policeman, ex-serviceman, quiet couple, tinker, nurse, commercial traveller, arts administrator, former Lord Provost, Glasgow comedian, worried civil servant, brilliant but unstable politician, lighthouse keeper and trained cormorant. This is the first British fiction since The Canterbury Tales to show such a wide social range in such embarrassing sexual detail, yet no characters are based on real people, not even the Glasgow comedian.

What the critics say

Very For

‘Something Leather is Alasdair Gray’s most entertaining, and maybe his best, novel to date’ Arena

‘Brilliantly funny, beautifully observed, and shot through with irony’ Anne Smith, Literary Review

‘Edgy, sharp and genuinely shocking’ Christopher Walker, Observer

‘This brilliant book . . . is altogether admirable . . . Alasdair Gray is a splendid storyteller, in command of vivid and vigorous prose. His book is touching, bracing and very funny’ Paul Driver, Financial Times

Not Very For

‘A book that shouldn’t have happened’ Harry Ritchie, Sunday Times

‘A confection of self-indulgent tripe’ Victoria Glendinning, The Times

‘An ill-conceived, sloppy book, charmless and squalid, it aims low and fails to deliver’ Paul Whittacker, Tribune

‘A novel not fully resolved . . . however, the book – as you might expect from a painter and illustrator who does his own designing – is stunningly beautiful’ George Macbeth, Irish Times