An Old Pub Near the Angel

This is a collection of 13 short stories originally published in the US in 1973 and never out of print there since. That Kelman is Scottish and that his first works were published in the US tells a sorry tale of the UK publishing trade. For this version, published in 2007, Kelman, as he explains in his Afterword, made no revisions or updates and for the best possible reason - artistic integrity.

There is no short story here that I would not be proud to have written and given that the variety of storyline and characterisation is broad and innovative that is a legacy to take pride in. Some, like Nice to be Nice are groundbreaking stylistically and broke the ground that doubtless made the eventual publishing of Trainspotting by Irvine show more Welsh possible, nay inevitable.

Several of these stories are so strong and so good that they would and should grace any anthology of short stories of the 20th century; Abject Misery for example does exactly as it says on the tin - it portrays a man in abject misery and yet it does it with humour and perfect observational detail.

Kelman is a largely unacknowledged giant of British literature and his wonderful Afterword explains both some of his voyage to publication and his artistic integrity in his own well chosen words and is, of itself, worth the price of the book so in literary terms this is the biggest bargain you are likely to get for a long time. show less