If it is Your Life

Giving voice to the dispossessed and crafting stories of lives on the edge, lives almost lost, lives held in the balance, James Kelman writes about the things that touch us all. With honesty, toughness and humour, he confronts the issues of language, class, politics, gender and age – identity in all its forms – with a sympathetic pen and a sharp and observant eye.

No other British writer today penetrates so deeply into the hearts, minds and desperation of his characters, and this collection is as uncompromising, and as beautiful, as anything he has ever written.

‘A collection that will surprise and disturb in equal measure.’GQ Magazine

‘As well as being a keen observer of society’s underclasses and disenfranchised, Kelman also has a great eye for the absurdity of everyday life, something which comes to the fore in this collection. Kelman is as precise a user of language as you’ll read anywhere. Not a single sentence here is flabby or cluttered. Or rather, if it is flabby or cluttered, it’s deliberately so. But in the 19 stories here, there is nothing resembling a traditional plot.’ Doug Johnstone, The Independent on Sunday

‘Kelman portrays his world with bleakly beautiful honesty.’ Mike Wade, The Times

‘Like Kelman’s best work, it is tender and funny in a way that may surprise those who know him only by reputation.’ Anthony Cummins, Daily Telegraph****

‘An underrated feature of Kelman’s work has been his capacity for depicting tenderness…… What makes Kelman’s moments of empathy so precious and precise is that they take place against a backdrop of philosophically coherent solipsism.’ Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday

‘Perhaps you don’t know the Man Booker International-shortlisted James Kelman but you should. You only have to read one phrase to recognise his utterly distinctive voice- lyrical, philosophical as a pub stool resident and steeped in the street…The result, for those who take words seriously, is canonical and pure joy. ‘ Metro*****