Laidlaw
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season224 pages, about 4 hours: two-thirds the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbTwo readers on one blog report the opening is slow and the Glaswegian dialect is a challenge at first.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live byIn 13 reviews from critics and book blogs, 3 credit the plot and 6 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesThe Spectator and The Skinny liken McIlvanney’s prose to Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep, on the shelf at 229 pages.
The case for it
on the prose
“a maelstrom of gangland violence, brutal sentimentality and sectarianism told in richly Gothic prose”
Laura Wilson · The Guardian, 2013 on Glasgow itself
“The other main character in the novel is Glasgow itself”
Allan Massie · The Spectator, 2013 on the imagery
“the unlikely, yet arresting, images which pepper the text”
a book blog on the characterisation
“The characterisation throughout the book is particularly strong, each character as believable as the next”
five stars · a book blog
The case against
on Glaswegian dialect
“written in a heavy Glaswegian dialect, which is difficult to read”
Andrea Pura · Akashic Books, 2014 on the pace
“some readers might find it a bit slow by modern-day standards”
five stars · a book blog on Harkness’s character
“Harkness, for example, feels a bit underdeveloped”
M.A. Orthofer · the complete review, 2014 on the metaphors
“Notwithstanding an excess of metaphor”
Unsigned · Kirkus Reviews, 1977
