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How Late It Was, How Late

3.62 of 5 stars 3.62 · rating details · 1,423 ratings · 116 reviews

One Sunday morning in Glasgow, shoplifting ex-con Sammy awakens in an alley, wearing another man's shoes and trying to remember his two-day drinking binge. He gets in a scrap with some soldiers and revives in a jail cell, badly beaten and, he slowly discovers, completely blind. And things get worse: his girlfriend disappears, the police question him for a crime they won't...more

Paperback, 384 pages

Published October 17th 2005 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published December 1st 1994)

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The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Booker Prize Winners

37th out of 48 books — 1,009 voters

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

The Guardian's "1000 Novels Everyone Must Read"

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May 16, 2012 Jogle rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, booker-winners, 1001-2readb4udie

Written in the Glaswegian vernacular, this Booker Prize winning novel follows Sammy in a stream of consciousness first person narration of his chaotic life. Following an alcoholic binge “lost weekend” culminating in a beating, Sammy is left blind. Stumbling around in the shell of his life he tries to piece together the events that led up to his condition, and how to cope with the future in his own way. At times hopeless, sometimes indomitable, he accepts the disability like a man habituated to m...more

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Jan 09, 2011 Allan MacDonell rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Nay point in hoping for the best," says Glasgow, Scotland's bold and blinded Sammy early on in How Late It Was, How Late. It's hard-won advice, and given with the highest of intentions.

Don't be daunted by the accent. Don't be put off because the entire book takes place inside the mind of a solitary drinking man whose eyesight has been beaten right out of his head—while in police custody.

And where is that formerly loyal girlfriend? Has she scampered, finally, or is she buried somewhere just beyo...more

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Jun 08, 2008 Aidan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: David Convery

This book is good for those who liked the stream of consciousness style of 'Ulysses' and 'Trainspotting'. Whereas Joyce's characters were mostly lower middle class the main character in this is a Glaswegian ex-prisoner whos thought processes on life in and out of prison we are privy to. There are no allusions to art, academia or philosophy but through allusions to cheesey country and western songs and various radio programmes the character listens to contributes to the authentic feel of the sett...more

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Jun 07, 2008 Sun rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 21, 2012 Dua'a Behbehani rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was really hard for me to understand, I felt so stupid reading it. This should be used as an antidote for overconfident people with big egos because it made me feel like I didn't hae an education, lol. It was just that it took a long time for me to get into the novel and I felt it was vague at times and that the only person who knew what was going on was the author. Also, a lot of things were left unanswered, I don't k ow if the author thought he was being cool when he di that or becau...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

HOW LATE IT WAS, HOW LATE. (1994; U.S. Ed. 1995). James Kelman. ****.
I had not heard of either this author or this novel before a firend recommended it to me. Turns out that it was the winner of the Booker Prize in 1994, but never managed to become a notable seller on the book market. There are obvious reasons for this. The novel is written in what is, presumably, lower-class Scottish dialect. At first, I was turned off by it, but eventually it began to flow without my minding it so much. The a...more HOW LATE IT WAS, HOW LATE. (1994; U.S. Ed. 1995). James Kelman. ****.
I had not heard of either this author or this novel before a firend recommended it to me. Turns out that it was the winner of the Booker Prize in 1994, but never managed to become a notable seller on the book market. There are obvious reasons for this. The novel is written in what is, presumably, lower-class Scottish dialect. At first, I was turned off by it, but eventually it began to flow without my minding it so much. The author is a Scotsman and sets this novel in Glascow. The protagonist is Sammy. Sammy is a thirty-eight-year old man. He’s an ex-con, and currently living with his girlfriend in her apartment house. He’s on the dole, although he does take on jobs of unskilled labor when forced to by various agencies. On a Friday night he has a fight with his girlfriend, Helen, variously described as a “tiff,” or an “argument,” or a strong disagreement. He takes off for the local pub where he proceeds to get roaring drunk – to the point that he doesn’t even remember Saturday. On Sunday, he has a malicious hangover and leaves the pub headed back to the apartment. He encounters a group of four soldiers. His term soldiers is applied to policemen, and we ultimately see that that’s who these four were. He manages to pick a fight with them for no reason and gets brutally beaten as a result. The police (more soldiers?) pick him up and take him into the local station. From here on out, the novel is a clever alternative to Kafka’s “The Trial.” He is questioned as to whom he met and drank with over the weekend, but he can’t remember because of the blackouts. While sitting in his cell, awaiting another interrogation, he goes blind. This man has no luck. Even Job had a better deal than Sammy. He is finally released from jail, even though he is now blind and broke and tries to make his way back home. When he arrives, he finds that Helen is gone – really gone. He has to develop a strategy to deal with his blindness and how to make it until his next welfare check comes in. He believes that the police are following him, but he can’t be sure since he can’t see. He’d like a drink, but between the effort of getting to a pub and the lack of ready cash, he can’t have one. Things don’t get any better for Sammy. When he finally makes it to the welfare bureau on Monday, he begins to encounter the coldness and indifference of the system. He can’t win, although he does manage to hook up with a “rep,” a person who is willing to help him through the maze of the system for a 1/3 cut of any awards that might come from his claim against the police. Telling you any more would ruin the story, but you have to first decide what the story is all about yourself, first. Recommended.
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Jan 05, 2011 Andy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Andy by: The Booker Prize

Shelves: 2011, prize-winners

Arghh, I've mixed feelings about this book. I started it a fair while ago flying back to the UK and it's really not an airplane book. I put it aside for a while, read a bunch of other books and then tried finishing it before the year ended. No such luck.

Sammy (as the blurb says) has had a bad week. That much is true. A lost drunken weekend, possible mugging, definite assult and sudden blindness. We meander through a short period of his life in a repetitive stream of consciousness that is intense...more

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Sep 03, 2010 Cams rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-twice

I just read this novel for the second time and enjoyed it a lot. The first Kelman book I read was A Dissafection, back when I was on my year abroad in Odessa in 1995. Upon my return I got How Late it Was, How Late and liked it a little better.

The novel is written in the Glasgow dialect, which is very close to the Ayrshire dialect that I grew up with. It's partly the poetry of that language that really appeals to me. Having studied linguistics and socio-linguistics probably makes the book more ap...more

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Aug 19, 2009 Becky rated it 3 of 5 stars

How Late it Was, How Late is the story of a man in Glasgow who's story begins after a massive lost weekend. We're never really sure if it's drink related actual loss, or if Samuels is craftier than he seems and hiding the truth from us. It's a difficult one to rate, as while I really enjoyed reading it, the narrative is so wandering and muddled that it's difficult to get truly gripped. But at this same time, this scrappy style is the real delight of the novel - it's a bit of a mystery to me that...more

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Apr 21, 2012 Shovelmonkey1 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: all ye fekkin bampots

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list

Shelves: 1001-books, booker-prize-winner, scotch-on-the-rocks, read-in-2012

If you have never been to Scotland, then literature would have you believe that it is the bleakest, most soul destroying pit of blackened abject despair. The cities are populated with grey-skinned downtrodden gurners whose only options are alcoholism, drugs or suicide. The rivers Clyde, Forth and Tay are not filled with water, nay, they are filled with the salty tears of Rangers Fans, beaten housewives, victims of police violence and neglected children. Did Hadrian build his wall in 122 AD as a...more If you have never been to Scotland, then literature would have you believe that it is the bleakest, most soul destroying pit of blackened abject despair. The cities are populated with grey-skinned downtrodden gurners whose only options are alcoholism, drugs or suicide. The rivers Clyde, Forth and Tay are not filled with water, nay, they are filled with the salty tears of Rangers Fans, beaten housewives, victims of police violence and neglected children. Did Hadrian build his wall in 122 AD as a physical barrier to stem the tidal wave of depression, moving down like some sort of unstoppable weather front from the north? Possibly. However I, as an actual bonafide Scottish, am here to tell you that this is not the case. We can be a cheery bunch, honest.

How Late it Was, How Late is doesn't exactly paint a cheerful picture of life in working-class Glasgow and the bleakness is further enhanced by the fact that we only come to know protagonist Sammy, via his stream of consciousness outpourings which are variously angry, confused and stoic. Add into the mix the fact that this book is written in working class Scottish dialect will make it seem grimmer to some, and possibly completely incomprehensible to others. Sammy is not having a good week. In fact Sammy has the very good makings of a country and western ballad on his hands. His girlfriend has left him, the polis have beaten him up causing possible permanent blindness, he's got no giro and his friends think he is a grass. Presumably if he had a dog, then that would have died as well. The book spans just over a week in the life of Sammy as he struggles to adjust to his loss of sight although he is surprisingly sanguine about it which was probably key in getting people to empathise with his plight. I came to this with no preconceptions; seriously I'd never heard of it before but I had a vague inkling it was on the 1001 books to read before you die list, so it was nice to pick it up and after the brief adjustment to grammar and vocab (pause-lite C*nt-heavy), become totally engrossed.

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh was published one year before Kelman's Booker Prize winning effort and so presumably Welsh deserves a little credit for paving the way and preparing people for the full frontal attack of an entire book written in Scottish dialect. Check out my review of Morvern Callar if you wish to learn yerself Scotch before hand.(less)

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Aug 06, 2012 Matchew McMatchew rated it 2 of 5 stars

I started out with 4 stars..I loved the language and the stream of consciousness style of writing, it really intrigued me and I enjoyed reading the story. I was whizzing through it so I guess I have to give Kelman credit for that..

..I couldn't wait to find out what actually happened on the Saturday night, what happened to Helen, I swore he must have killed her in a violent episode and he had become so traumatized he had mentally broken down..or something to that affect. I was desperate to know w...more

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Jun 03, 2009 Curtis Westman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

How Late It Was, How Late is a fun novel to read. Written entirely in stream-of-consciousness Glaswegian, Kelman's novel has a flair that honours the flavour of Glasgow in its realistic portrayal of a man, Sammy, who is embroiled in bad luck. The story follows Sammy's journey after a blackout two-day drinking binge, the events of which are never made completely clear. It begins in medias res, as Sammy starts a fight with police officers ('sodjers') only to be beaten badly and wake up without his...more How Late It Was, How Late is a fun novel to read. Written entirely in stream-of-consciousness Glaswegian, Kelman's novel has a flair that honours the flavour of Glasgow in its realistic portrayal of a man, Sammy, who is embroiled in bad luck. The story follows Sammy's journey after a blackout two-day drinking binge, the events of which are never made completely clear. It begins in medias res, as Sammy starts a fight with police officers ('sodjers') only to be beaten badly and wake up without his sight. The reasoning behind his attack on the officers is ambiguous, but Sammy never blames anyone but himself for his actions. Throughout the novel, we discover that the drinking binge was brought on by a fight he had had with his live-in girlfriend, Helen, and after he is released from lockup, struggling to find his way home without being able to see, he returns to their flat to discover that she is missing.

The plot of How Late It Was, How Late is not extremely complicated, but like Ulysses before it, the simplest of actions are described in minute detail. This is important in the context of the novel, because Sammy's sudden blindness is an affliction shared by the reader. New characters are never described physically, except in subtle guesses based on their attitudes and demeanors. Locations are never identified except by touch and the promise that Sammy is where he means to be. Most importantly, Sammy's decisions happen on the fly, and we are privy to every one of his changes of heart, whether they be justified or not. Thus, a simple trip to the shops to buy a lunch becomes an ordeal, and Sammy is thwarted by everything from the whether to his own sense of direction. In short, we, also, are made to feel blind.

This is especially true of the outcome of the novel. Though we hear Sammy's thoughts on the present situations, his final decisions seem to come as they happen, and though he aims to do one thing, he could very well choose to do another. When the novel ends much like it began, in the middle of the story, the reader is left to ponder what he has decided and especially whether or not it will work out. Kelman never just gives the reader an answer without a reasoning.

The narrator is an interesting literary device as well, here, as it is stream-of-consciousness and privy only to the thoughts of Sammy, but it is in third person. With the brogue and demeanor of the narrator, the constant divergences and tangents, and the language in which the story is presented, it feels as if the novel reads like a life story told at a pub or in prison, a recanting of a journey originally told by Sammy but passed along from person to person as a tale of one man's struggle against the police, fate, and his own bad habits.

Sammy is a sympathetic character for sure, though his troubled past makes him unreliable. Even throughout the worst trials he suffers in the novel, he remains optimistic and is always changing his plans to meet the challenges presented to him. How Late It Was, How Late is in some ways an uplifting novel because Sammy is such a fighter, against the odds, and yet his good demeanor and apologetic nature always come through in the end.(less)

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Nov 03, 2009 Marieke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: booker-prize-winners, read-in-2009, oban-library, scottish

Wham! You’re blind. Just like that; you wake up and realise that suddenly you’re totally blind. And you’re in jail, and you’ve suffered a pretty bad beating. Maybe your ribs are cracked, you can hardly breathe.

You’re craving a smoke, missing your girlfriend, and thinking about where to get your next drink. When the cops throw you out onto the pavement, you don’t know how you’re going to get home.

This is Sammy’s world. He paces the streets of Glasgow with a homemade white-tipped stick and a neve...more

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Dec 06, 2008 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: European book committees

Allright Booker Prize. We're done. You have proven, time and time again, that either you have terrible tastes or I am a total philistine. How late it was is the newest entry into your proud history of Texan timewasters.

Here's what's cool about the book. Scottish working class guy picks a fight with the cops, gets beatdown, goes blind. The parts where he gets out of jail in his hometown and has to find his way back to his apartment is awesome. The part where he deals with government bureaucracy i...more

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Oct 24, 2008 Jen rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: someone I didn't like

Shelves: fiction, ugh, scottish, stream-of-consciousness, name-yer-poison

I think this is the worst book I've ever read to completion. First of all, it's a stream of conciousness novel written in working-class Scottish dialect. Secondly, there was no ultimate payoff for my having to struggle through the frustrating narrative style. I want those hours of my life back!

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Mar 01, 2008 Amy Fladeboe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-time-favorites

This is the most intense book I have ever read, but painfully long and sometimes very boring. I didn't care though. It followed the life of a man just turned blind. My experience reading the book paralleled this man's life. Brilliant!

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Jun 07, 2010 Ross rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: re-shelved

This book caught my attention because it won the Booker Prize, is written in Scottish brogue and sounded like an Irvine Welsh novel. In actuality, it's more like Ulysses, where the entire novel is the protanist's stream of conciousness (I skipped ahead to confirm this). The protagnist, by the way, who is struck blind within the first few pages. It is like reading a play-by-play of someone who is wandering around their house in the dark--and drunk. I made it about 50 pages in before I could not s...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Ian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love the way this book is written, the narrative style in a Scottish vernacular reeks of atmosphere and the ramblings of a confused mind. The whole concept is very clever, listening to the internal workings of a man who has lost his sight.
Like a lot of literary novels I've read this one lacked punch at the end, the plot lines we get teased with are never resolved, some of Sammy's ramblings go on too long, and so the overall feeling at the end is one of dissatisfaction; that is harsh consideri...more

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Jan 20, 2012 Sunflower rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-read-2012, man-booker-prize

Hmmm...stream of consciousness, written by a Scot in working-class Glaswegian vernacular, and a book that would be half as long if he had left out all the f***s. Reminds me of "Metamorphosis", only twice as frustrating, and at times really quite funny.
My second attempt at this one, it's a fecking challenge to get into when the language gets in the way, although by the end I reckon I could just about manage in the streets of Glasgow, if I could get the accent right.
Sammy, the guy who is telling...more

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Apr 01, 2009 Alan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

Kelman's best (so far). It's a feckin masterpiece.

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May 24, 2012 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of those books you read to go to sleep by, that ends up keeping you up. Fascinating portrait of a maddening person, whose self-destructive tendencies cut w/survival skills seem quite "real," in the context of the story's absurdism (drunk is beat up by police, blinded, their thug doctors refuse to permit him through the compensation process as they think he is mixed up with a hard-core politico...that is the weakest part, actually...quite offscreen). The taunting w/friends and cronies and dom...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Middlemarcher rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kelman's fiercely demotic modernist prose shapes an uncompromising portrait of Sammy, a Glaswegian man who becomes blind after a beating from the police. How Late It Was, How Late has more in common with the stream of consciousness of Beckett and alienating paranoia of Kafka than it does with much of the writing it influenced (most famously Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting).

If swear words, lack of plot, and the insistence that Sammy is as valid a literary character as any middle class professional a...more

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Apr 04, 2012 Courtney H. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookers

I feel very "eh" about this book, so this may be a short review (ha!). The novel tracks Sammy, a working class (currently unemployed) ex-con who wakes up with no memory of an entire day after a drinking binge, and immediately gets arrested and beaten up by the police. The beating leaves him blinded and the novel follows him -- or rather his train of thoughts -- as he makes his way through his first two weeks as a blind man, being dogged by the police who seem to know more than he does about some...more I feel very "eh" about this book, so this may be a short review (ha!). The novel tracks Sammy, a working class (currently unemployed) ex-con who wakes up with no memory of an entire day after a drinking binge, and immediately gets arrested and beaten up by the police. The beating leaves him blinded and the novel follows him -- or rather his train of thoughts -- as he makes his way through his first two weeks as a blind man, being dogged by the police who seem to know more than he does about something happening on his missing day. The novel is told in a third-person voice, but is stream-of-consciousness and is merely a third-person rendition of Sammy's voice. As such, it is told wholly in Sammy's Scottish dialect, complete with vernacular and curses every other word. Sentences trail off; he gets confused; and we are left to get confused with him.

The novel was clearly intended to be provocative, and indeed was at the time -- it caused a stir when it won the Booker and was very polarizing. But it didn't actually stir up that much in me, either good or bad. I wonder if it is a timing issue. This was written in the mid-1990s; its ability to shock has dropped dramatically in the past 17 years. Books and movies like Trainspotting, and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and any number of books, have saturated the market and affected how we approach books. Dialect-intense story-telling isn't provocative or new as much as it is merely another accepted and true way to tell a story by using the words that characters might actually speak and think. And since that seems to be the crux of the provocative nature of the book, 15 years latter it leaves the book a bit bland.

Sammy, after all, isn't that provocative. He's interesting, though; and seeing the world through his mind, as he reconstitutes and sorts out the world around him, is similarly an interesting jaunt. He is an alcoholic, somewhat paranoid (possibly with some reason to be) unemployed, newly blind and newly abandoned man, without many people to trust or tether him to reality (whatever that reality is). He mistrusts the people who could help him, but then is surprisingly pliant. He alternately plays the victim and the self-starter. You feel bad for what he's going through, but you also understand why it happens. Sammy wants to be a better problem-solver than he actually is. As I read, I was simulateously aggravating by the powers that were screwing with him, and the inability of the system to do anything productive; and aggravated with Sammy, who made every bad situation worse.

But in the end, his story didn't grab me. Despite spending 350 pages in Sammy's head, I didn't feel all that invested in him. I could compare him to other books and other characters in which I have been invested and pull from those books the emotions I ought to feel for Sammy; but Kelman didn't manage to hook me in himself. Thus, it warrants an: eh.

As a side note, I'd recommend reading this only when you can dedicate chunks of time to it; like True History of the Kelly Gang, it reads best when you have time to get into the rhythm of the writing.(less)

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Nov 28, 2011 Athena Kennedy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: booker-prize-winners

Ohh boy. This was a hard one for me. I've never been into the stream-of-consciousness narration style, and this was that in a working class Scottish accent:

He pushed ahead. The wind felt familiar. It was a Scottish wind. Scottish winds fuck ye. They do in yer ears. Then there was the poor auld fucking flappers man yer feet, they were fucking swimming even his wrists, for some reason they were sore. Fucking bracelets man these dirty bampot bastards, desperate; nay fucking need.

I don't think I ev...more Ohh boy. This was a hard one for me. I've never been into the stream-of-consciousness narration style, and this was that in a working class Scottish accent:

He pushed ahead. The wind felt familiar. It was a Scottish wind. Scottish winds fuck ye. They do in yer ears. Then there was the poor auld fucking flappers man yer feet, they were fucking swimming even his wrists, for some reason they were sore. Fucking bracelets man these dirty bampot bastards, desperate; nay fucking need.

I don't think I ever succeeded in getting past the style.

I really did try though. S. Samuels "Sammy" has been on a drinking binge and blacked out an entire day. Upon stumbling awake, he is apprehended by the police, beaten, and wakes up in a prison cell several hours later blinded. Perhaps permanently. James Kelman sets up all sorts of mysteries: what happened in the lost day? Where did Helen get off to? How was Sammy really blinded? What has Sammy been up to for money? How will Sammy's life change because of his new disability? But don't get your hopes up - this story isn't really about any of these things. This story is about Sammy, an idealist, a dreamer, dealing with his life in tatters and adapting to new situations. He is an intelligent man, street smart, with a head for stories and songs. He's incredibly stubborn - nothing gets his down for long. But he's also an addicted smoker (who can't stop thinking about his next fix), an alcoholic, probably a criminal, and certainly a potty-mouth.

Added to this is perhaps my biggest pet peeve: Kelman gave me no chapter breaks. Combined with the sentences and paragraphs that run on and don't end cleanly, picking up this book always felt disorienting and the narrative was made even more inconsistent. 200 pages in I was dreading having to finish the novel.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there was a lot to like in this book, and some people certainly seemed to have loved it. The language and narration style were certainly unique, and Sammy has many redeeming qualities. But I'm just glad I finished it.(less)

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Feb 23, 2011 Moses Kilolo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The language in this one is something else all together. I tend to have no issues with foreign dialects. As long as I understand what the f**k is being said. But in the beginning of this book I was a bit worried. Every sentence contained the word fuck, or some other absolutely uncensored speech. We tend to be a bit reserved, as Africans living in Africa, when it comes to this kind of language. But interestingly the book was so easy to read. It is a spellbinding story, at times extremely sensitiv...more

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Sep 22, 2008 Ann rated it 2 of 5 stars

So a few years ago, after I read a blue streak through God of Small Things, Midnight’s Children, Amsterdam, Remains of the Day, Possession, The Blind Assassin – they are all amazing – I decided that I would read every past Booker Prize winner (apparently I am unhappy unless doing something that can eventually crossed off a list.) And although we’ve had some good times – I mean, wow, I would never have thought The English Patient worth reading – my current stance is, Booker Prize, can we talk? La...more

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Sep 08, 2008 Simon A. Smith rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels-after-1980

I liked this book, but stopped just short of loving it. Despite the fact that the story is a rather savage, violent one, the pace is a bit slow, dreamy and repetitive. For example, it takes the main character, Sammy, about twenty pages to make it from the bus to his apartment. Then, later, it takes ten pages for him to have a tediously circular conversation with a lawyer that pretty much ends right where it began.

Also, not much ever gets resolved or revealed. I kept hoping that I'd find out som...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Barbara Sibbald rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you can get inside a dialect (think Trainspotting), check out this nightmarish journey inside the head of a Scottish ne'er do well that aspires to, and eaches Kafka-esque levels of absurdity. In the end, you're not quite sure if the guy's paranoid or if his fears are founded. Sammy's one swell anti-hero and I was rooting for him despite his ineptness, temper and idiocy. One thing you could say about his though, he never blames anyone else for his misfortune. You have to like that.

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Apr 06, 2010 Hayden Trenholm rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mainstream-fiction

Kelman won the Booker Prize on a 5-4 vote for this novel. The four dissenting judges were so incensed they went public with a minority report -- the only time in Booker history this happened. They hated it as much as the other judges and I loved it. So I guess you can say for sure it is not for everyone. Reading this novel is a lot like watching a train wreck -- or rather two trains colliding. Both majestic and horrifying, it is almost impossible to set aside (I read it in two big gulps about a...more

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Jun 02, 2013 Judith rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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About James Kelman

Kelman says:

My own background is as normal or abnormal as anyone else's. Born and bred in Govan and Drumchapel, inner city tenement to the housing scheme homeland on the outer reaches of the city. Four brothers, my mother a full time parent, my father in the picture framemaking and gilding trade, trying to operate a one man business and I left school at 15 etc. etc. (...) For one reason or anothe...more

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“Ye wake in a corner and stay there hoping yer body will disappear, the thoughts smothering ye; these thoughts; but ye want to remember and face up to things, just something keeps ye from doing it, why can't ye no do it; the words filling yer head: then the other words; there's something wrong; there's something far far wrong; ye're no a good man, ye're just no a good man. Edging back into awareness, of where ye are: here, slumped in this corner, with these thoughts filling ye. And oh christ his back was sore; stiff, and the head pounding. He shivered and hunched up his shoulders, shut his eyes, rubbed into the corners with his fingertips; seeing all kinds of spots and lights. Where in the name of fuck...” — 1 person liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89208.How_Late_It_Was_How_Late?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358745713l/89208.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89208.How_Late_It_Was_How_Late?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman[/url]

How Late It Was, How Late

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