A riotous urban picaresque, richly laced with black humour, Jeff Torrington's comic novel marks a milestone in Scottish literature.

'This tale of a week in the life of Tam Clay, Gorbals slum-dweller, father-in-waiting and wordsmith manque, is funny from beginning to end... As Tam stumbles through the drink-sodden world of the Gorbals underclass of the sixties, when a house in Castlemilk was an ambition, he embarks on a mini-odyssey of self-discovery while blinding the reader with literary legerdemain' - Ian Black, The Herald.

Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.