Winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize

Charlie Grant, an intense young student at Glasgow University watches his father die. Overwhelmed by the memory of this humble yet dignified death, Charlie is left to face his own fierce resentment for his adulterous mother.

With shades of Hamlet and Camus, William McIlvanney's first novel is a revelatory portrait of youth, of society and of family.

"The finest Scottish novelist of our time" - * Telegraph *