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A Gift from Nessus
Eddie Cameron is a salesman for Rocklight Ltd., an electrical equipment firm in Glasgow, where he has been fiddling the firm's expenses. Eddie's life is in tatters - his wife hates him, and his violent temper has left his mistress teetering on the edge of sanity.
- GenresFiction
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
6 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
William McIlvanney
40 books228 followersWilliam McIlvanney was a Scottish writer of novels, short stories, and poetry. He was a champion of gritty yet poetic literature; his works Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch, and Walking Wounded are all known for their portrayal of Glasgow in the 1970s. He is regarded as "the father of 'Tartan Noir’" and has been described as "Scotland's Camus".
His first book, Remedy is None, was published in 1966 and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967. Docherty (1975), a moving portrait of a miner whose courage and endurance is tested during the depression, won the Whitbread Novel Award.
Laidlaw (1977), The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983) and Strange Loyalties (1991) are crime novels featuring Inspector Jack Laidlaw. Laidlaw is considered to be the first book of Tartan Noir.
William McIlvanney was also an acclaimed poet, the author of The Longships in Harbour: Poems (1970) and Surviving the Shipwreck (1991), which also contains pieces of journalism, including an essay about T. S. Eliot. McIlvanney wrote a screenplay based on his short story Dreaming (published in Walking Wounded in 1989) which was filmed by BBC Scotland in 1990 and won a BAFTA.
Since April 2013, McIlvanney's own website has featured personal, reflective and topical writing, as well as examples of his journalism.
Adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...
His first book, Remedy is None, was published in 1966 and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967. Docherty (1975), a moving portrait of a miner whose courage and endurance is tested during the depression, won the Whitbread Novel Award.
Laidlaw (1977), The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983) and Strange Loyalties (1991) are crime novels featuring Inspector Jack Laidlaw. Laidlaw is considered to be the first book of Tartan Noir.
William McIlvanney was also an acclaimed poet, the author of The Longships in Harbour: Poems (1970) and Surviving the Shipwreck (1991), which also contains pieces of journalism, including an essay about T. S. Eliot. McIlvanney wrote a screenplay based on his short story Dreaming (published in Walking Wounded in 1989) which was filmed by BBC Scotland in 1990 and won a BAFTA.
Since April 2013, McIlvanney's own website has featured personal, reflective and topical writing, as well as examples of his journalism.
Adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 19, 2025
Hairshirt? Coat of fire? An excoriating examination of infidelity, and for 1968 (although the ambiance could be any 20th c time postwar-to-pre digital) quite a representation of middle-class betrayal. I thought McIlvanney wrote crime fiction, but this remains a study in psychological tension, vapidity of having to make innuendo-overloaded chat with fellow wage-slave salesmen, gurning as if all's well.
The blurb plays up grift and greed, yet frankly neither vice plays prominently, only a passing mention in an opening vignette and an aside midway from the protagonist's boss. Don't expect any made men, shootouts, or wisecracking molls. Rather, a serious, unsparing excavation into repressed revelations, simmering resentments, sexual disappointments, and, a spare, small saving grace, a splash of banter.
It's slightly above its genre, maybe akin to Updike, as it's laden with literary allusions (see the mythic title, unexplained by the by), for Cameron did a stint in a bookshop, and his mistress teaches French to dullard schoolboys. And two characters use "flagella" in their banter, correct in Latin grammar. So it's a blend of middlebrow domestic drama, and a pleasingly (if at times straining for significance) tale, if one's in a dour mood for Glaswegian argument, self-damning recriminations, and lots of spite.
Not sure if I'd be racing to seek out McIlvanney's work (Docherty apparently his best known effort) as my must-read-next, but I respect his bracing, astringent, and whiskey-sour attitude in measured drams as here. I found this recommended among noir, so perhaps his other books delve into this bog?
The blurb plays up grift and greed, yet frankly neither vice plays prominently, only a passing mention in an opening vignette and an aside midway from the protagonist's boss. Don't expect any made men, shootouts, or wisecracking molls. Rather, a serious, unsparing excavation into repressed revelations, simmering resentments, sexual disappointments, and, a spare, small saving grace, a splash of banter.
It's slightly above its genre, maybe akin to Updike, as it's laden with literary allusions (see the mythic title, unexplained by the by), for Cameron did a stint in a bookshop, and his mistress teaches French to dullard schoolboys. And two characters use "flagella" in their banter, correct in Latin grammar. So it's a blend of middlebrow domestic drama, and a pleasingly (if at times straining for significance) tale, if one's in a dour mood for Glaswegian argument, self-damning recriminations, and lots of spite.
Not sure if I'd be racing to seek out McIlvanney's work (Docherty apparently his best known effort) as my must-read-next, but I respect his bracing, astringent, and whiskey-sour attitude in measured drams as here. I found this recommended among noir, so perhaps his other books delve into this bog?
June 11, 2015
As always, Mr McIlvanney gives us a wonderful book. It was very much of its time and it was very evocative of the era in which it was set.
I suspect that if I had read it when it was published I might have had a different opinion. Times were different and our social mores have changed beyond all recognition.
It was a superb novel and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it although it was slightly discomfiting to be reminded of certain aspects of life in the 60s and early 70s.
The author's talent ensures that the story remains worthy of reading even today.
I suspect that if I had read it when it was published I might have had a different opinion. Times were different and our social mores have changed beyond all recognition.
It was a superb novel and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it although it was slightly discomfiting to be reminded of certain aspects of life in the 60s and early 70s.
The author's talent ensures that the story remains worthy of reading even today.
January 18, 2016
Rarely have I finished a book so wrung out by emotion, as exhausted as if I'd been part of the argument myself.
For much of the time it is hard to feel sympathy with either Eddie Cameron or his wife. The life they lead, his colleagues and their behaviour, are unpleasant in their mundaneness. That I continued is, of course, down to William McIlvanney's writing, but I can't help thinking how draining it must also have been to write.
For much of the time it is hard to feel sympathy with either Eddie Cameron or his wife. The life they lead, his colleagues and their behaviour, are unpleasant in their mundaneness. That I continued is, of course, down to William McIlvanney's writing, but I can't help thinking how draining it must also have been to write.
August 7, 2024
The prose is often annoyingly overworked but nevertheless the narrative conveys the depths of the inner life and dilemmas of Eddie, the character through whom we see the world.
August 11, 2023
McIlvanney’s writing is held in high regard and now fond memory. This is a book I bought years ago (vaguely wondering if I had already read it) but have only got round to now. (I hadn’t.) It was his second novel, written and published quite a few years before Docherty, the book which would cement his reputation, though, with Laidlaw and The Papers of Tony Veitch he would subsequently be credited as being the “onlie begetter” of the slew of Scottish crime fiction now known as tartan noir.
Eddie Cameron is a sales rep frustrated by his job and life in general. His marriage to Allison has settled into a kind of indifference leavened only by the presence of two young daughters, Alice and Helen, his car is a liability, his interactions with colleagues perfunctory. Compounding his dissatisfaction is the lingering guilt he feels over his affair with schoolteacher Margaret Sutton. The novel is an examination of his swithering over in which direction he should steer his life. Leave his job and go back to working in a bookshop? Quit his marriage and set up with Margaret? Or let things remain as they are. Eddie does not want to cause pain to anyone but things have, of course, gone too far for that. Whatever decision he makes will inevitably grieve someone. The strings of his life begin unravelling when he is accosted one day by Margaret’s brother telling him to stay away from her. Later it turns out his boss, Jim Morton, has also been told of the affair.
While most of the book is focused on Eddie and his thoughts, some scenes are seen from other’s viewpoints, Jim Morton, Margaret, Allison. That chapter on Allison though comes very late in the book; too late really. Her motivations and their intended effect on Eddie ought to have been established earlier.
The characters are all well drawn, recognisably people but McIlvanney’s writing here is consciously literary, his intention in that regard overtly signalled by the classical allusion in the book’s title. However, the prose is at times overwritten, strives too much for weightiness.
There are some lighter moments, though. At one point Eddie reflects on that Scottish institution, the Burns Supper, where, lubricated of course by alcohol, “Men who never contemplated poetry from one year to the next listened to reciters as if they were so many burning bushes. The image of Burns, Scotland’s Jack of all men, would recede further and further until it vanished altogether.”
Eddie Cameron is a sales rep frustrated by his job and life in general. His marriage to Allison has settled into a kind of indifference leavened only by the presence of two young daughters, Alice and Helen, his car is a liability, his interactions with colleagues perfunctory. Compounding his dissatisfaction is the lingering guilt he feels over his affair with schoolteacher Margaret Sutton. The novel is an examination of his swithering over in which direction he should steer his life. Leave his job and go back to working in a bookshop? Quit his marriage and set up with Margaret? Or let things remain as they are. Eddie does not want to cause pain to anyone but things have, of course, gone too far for that. Whatever decision he makes will inevitably grieve someone. The strings of his life begin unravelling when he is accosted one day by Margaret’s brother telling him to stay away from her. Later it turns out his boss, Jim Morton, has also been told of the affair.
While most of the book is focused on Eddie and his thoughts, some scenes are seen from other’s viewpoints, Jim Morton, Margaret, Allison. That chapter on Allison though comes very late in the book; too late really. Her motivations and their intended effect on Eddie ought to have been established earlier.
The characters are all well drawn, recognisably people but McIlvanney’s writing here is consciously literary, his intention in that regard overtly signalled by the classical allusion in the book’s title. However, the prose is at times overwritten, strives too much for weightiness.
There are some lighter moments, though. At one point Eddie reflects on that Scottish institution, the Burns Supper, where, lubricated of course by alcohol, “Men who never contemplated poetry from one year to the next listened to reciters as if they were so many burning bushes. The image of Burns, Scotland’s Jack of all men, would recede further and further until it vanished altogether.”
June 12, 2022
How Dead Inside Do You Have To Be?
A thirty ish sales exec in Glasgow, trapped in an empty, upwardly mobile pantomime of a marriage...he has an affair and it goes south. Way South. He needs to make some changes...and it may cost him everything.
A thirty ish sales exec in Glasgow, trapped in an empty, upwardly mobile pantomime of a marriage...he has an affair and it goes south. Way South. He needs to make some changes...and it may cost him everything.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 11, 2018
La vita di Eddie Cameron è un disastro. Il lavoro di rappresentante di apparecchiature elettriche non va; il suo matrimonio procede per abitudine e grazie solo alle figlie. Le scappatelle con l’amante sono diventate anch’esse routine.
Chi, o cosa salverà il buon Eddie?
La svolta, ma non sarà quella autentica in questa storia dove apparenze e formalità uccidono o hanno ucciso ideali e speranze, è nel colloquio di Eddie con il suo capo. Che è pure suo amico. Deve assolutamente chiudere un importante contratto con un grosso cliente, o saranno guai. Ma se riuscirà nell’impresa la sua carriera decollerà. Ah: deve anche smettere di caricare le spese sostenute per l’amante sui conti dell’azienda.
Eddie messo alle strette fa 2 cose: chiude il contratto e molla l’amante. Quella lieve trasgressione che minacciava la sua vita matrimoniale, ma non solo, è finalmente eliminata. Tutto sembra tornare nei binari uniformi dell’ordinarietà: ma la tragedia si presenta immersa in una vasca da bagno.
Eddie ha a che fare con 2 trappole: da una parte il lavoro (voleva lavorare in una libreria), dall’altra il matrimonio, una infinita serie di chiacchiere e azioni quotidiane che hanno come scopo solo di evitare di vedere l’orrore al quale ci si è dedicati con tanta passione.
Sono le figlie le uniche parentesi di serenità vera, ma pure in esse, c’è la predisposizione alla resa, già hanno imparato a parlare il linguaggio dell’abitudine.
Non è un romanzo con un lieto fine. C’è una sorta di rivelazione che segue la tragedia, e quindi il sussulto di Eddie che cerca di ritrovare sé stesso, la sua dignità; ma il finale scelto dall’autore, un finale che sfiora la tragedia, è ambiguo, lascia aperta ogni possibilità.
Come se le forze che avevano costruito la prigione di Eddie si fossero sì dissolte; ma quelle nuove non sembrano ancora avere l’energia per imporsi. E tutto è come sospeso, in attesa di chissà quali eventi o decisioni.
Chi, o cosa salverà il buon Eddie?
La svolta, ma non sarà quella autentica in questa storia dove apparenze e formalità uccidono o hanno ucciso ideali e speranze, è nel colloquio di Eddie con il suo capo. Che è pure suo amico. Deve assolutamente chiudere un importante contratto con un grosso cliente, o saranno guai. Ma se riuscirà nell’impresa la sua carriera decollerà. Ah: deve anche smettere di caricare le spese sostenute per l’amante sui conti dell’azienda.
Eddie messo alle strette fa 2 cose: chiude il contratto e molla l’amante. Quella lieve trasgressione che minacciava la sua vita matrimoniale, ma non solo, è finalmente eliminata. Tutto sembra tornare nei binari uniformi dell’ordinarietà: ma la tragedia si presenta immersa in una vasca da bagno.
Eddie ha a che fare con 2 trappole: da una parte il lavoro (voleva lavorare in una libreria), dall’altra il matrimonio, una infinita serie di chiacchiere e azioni quotidiane che hanno come scopo solo di evitare di vedere l’orrore al quale ci si è dedicati con tanta passione.
Sono le figlie le uniche parentesi di serenità vera, ma pure in esse, c’è la predisposizione alla resa, già hanno imparato a parlare il linguaggio dell’abitudine.
Non è un romanzo con un lieto fine. C’è una sorta di rivelazione che segue la tragedia, e quindi il sussulto di Eddie che cerca di ritrovare sé stesso, la sua dignità; ma il finale scelto dall’autore, un finale che sfiora la tragedia, è ambiguo, lascia aperta ogni possibilità.
Come se le forze che avevano costruito la prigione di Eddie si fossero sì dissolte; ma quelle nuove non sembrano ancora avere l’energia per imporsi. E tutto è come sospeso, in attesa di chissà quali eventi o decisioni.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews