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Alasdair gray best books6/21/2023 ![]() ![]() On the first hardback and paperback editions, Gray wrote that "This already dated novel is set inside the head of an ageing, divorced, alcoholic, insomniac supervisor of security installations who is tippling in the bedroom of a small Scottish hotel. The crisis concludes with McLeish vomiting up the pills which he had hoped would kill him, and facing the truth of his actions as morning dawns. Chapter 11 of the novel is a typographical explosion, with the text splitting into several parallel voices on each page (including that of God). However, McLeish constantly returns to reminiscences of his previous life and lovers. All of these are submitted to sadomasochistic practices, parts of which are described at some length. His cast of characters includes: Janine, based on a childhood memory of Jane Russell in The Outlaw Superb (short for Superbitch) and Big Momma, an obese lesbian. ![]() McLeish attempts to spend the night assembling an intricate pornographic fantasy. Divorced, alcoholic and approaching fifty, his problems coalesce in a long night of the soul in a hotel room in Peebles or Selkirk. The novel is narrated by Jock McLeish, a supervisor of the installation of alarm systems. Its use of pornography as a narrative device attracted much criticism, although others, including Gray himself, consider it his best work. His second, it was published in 1984, and remains his most controversial work. 1982, Janine is a novel by the Scottish author Alasdair Gray. ![]()
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