Novel
How Late It Was, How Late
James Kelman · 1994
Synopsis
Sammy wakes up in a Glasgow lane after two days of drinking, wearing shoes that are not his own. He fights with plain-clothes policemen, spends two days in a cell, and when he is released he can no longer see. No one explains why. He gropes his way home, his partner has disappeared, the administration asks him to prove his blindness in order to pay him a pension, and two men come back to question him about people he says he does not know.
Context
The book appeared in 1994 and won the British prize for the novel that same year, which caused a scandal: a female juror resigned publicly, calling it a disgrace, the head of a bookshop chain spoke of literary vandalism, and the press counted the swear words. The text is written in the language of its character, from the first word to the last, with no narrator to correct it: this is what its author had defended for twenty years, and the quarrel was less about the words than about the absence of an educated voice to frame them.
Who it is for
Four hundred pages in the speech of Glasgow, with no quotation marks or chapters. The opening resists for about fifty pages, then one cannot put it down.
Prizes and reception
Booker Prize 1994, awarded amid a public quarrel that occupied the press for weeks.