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A review by rosseroo
Ahead of its Time by Duncan McLean
4.0
Clocktower Press should enter the annals of literature as one of the foremost incubators of new Scottish literature. Under the stewardship of Duncan McLean, the semi-collective published ten booklets from 1990-96. All but one were 16-20 pages long and the print runs were 300-500. While many of the writers who appeared in the booklets are now well-known, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, James Meek, Gordon Legge, and editor McLean, Clocktower published them when they were still struggling to find their own voice and language. This anthology is broken into two halves, the first contains material that appeared in the ten booklets and has mostly not appeared elsewhere, and the second contains newer material both by past Clocktower contributors and those McLean hasn't been able to present until now. If you've never encountered modern Scottish literature, it's an OK place to test the waters, but a bit more haphazard than something like Children of Albion Rovers or parts of The Vintage Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction. The pieces here tend to be much briefer then one is used to, many are the half page little sketches that seem to be so popular with the modern Scots.
In the first half Meek, McLean, Legge, and Warner provide high-quality pieces ranging from the aforementioned half-pagers, which Legge in particular is fond of, to McLean's 20 page story, "The Druids Shite It and Fail to Show" (which appears in his collection Bucket of Tongues). Brent Hodgson and John Aberdein were new to me, and to be honest didn't do much for me, nor did the except from Janice Galloway's novel Foreign Parts. Alison Kermack's poetry, on the other hand, managed to captivate this poetry-hater with its fierce humor. The same can be said of Alison Flett's poetry in the second section, which shared many of the same qualities. Meek, Welsh, McLean, and James Kelman all have solid contributions in the second part. Ali Smith and Leila Aboulela's pieces I could take or leave, but Shug Hanlan's poetry and short stories were excellent and will have me tracking down his debut, Hi Bonnybrig. So, if you already know the major Scots writers, this won't show you anything new about them, but it's a good way to check out some of their lesser-known peers.
In the first half Meek, McLean, Legge, and Warner provide high-quality pieces ranging from the aforementioned half-pagers, which Legge in particular is fond of, to McLean's 20 page story, "The Druids Shite It and Fail to Show" (which appears in his collection Bucket of Tongues). Brent Hodgson and John Aberdein were new to me, and to be honest didn't do much for me, nor did the except from Janice Galloway's novel Foreign Parts. Alison Kermack's poetry, on the other hand, managed to captivate this poetry-hater with its fierce humor. The same can be said of Alison Flett's poetry in the second section, which shared many of the same qualities. Meek, Welsh, McLean, and James Kelman all have solid contributions in the second part. Ali Smith and Leila Aboulela's pieces I could take or leave, but Shug Hanlan's poetry and short stories were excellent and will have me tracking down his debut, Hi Bonnybrig. So, if you already know the major Scots writers, this won't show you anything new about them, but it's a good way to check out some of their lesser-known peers.