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The Kiln
In a rented flat in Edinburgh, Tom Docherty calls up his past. He remembers his youth in a mining town during the 1950's, and his adulthood in Grenoble. Now in the 1990's, he tries to make sense of his experiences and the times he has lived through.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1996
28 people are currently reading
180 people want to read
About the author
William McIlvanney
39 books226 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 - 29 of 29 reviews
May 4, 2019
A man and a nation...
When we first meet him, Tam Docherty, the first person narrator, is on his way from his home in Grenoble back to Graithnock, the Ayrshire town where he was born and bred. As he travels, he is visited by memories of his childhood and adolescence, his later life and marriage, but mostly of the summer of 1955 when, between leaving school and going to University, he worked in the local brickworks for a few months, and learned a little about life, girls and himself.
Tam is the grandson of the first Tam who was the central character in Docherty, McIlvanney’s earlier book set before and after WW1. In that book, the first Tam was determined that his son, Conn, would not follow him down the mines – that Conn would get an education and raise himself out of the hard-scrabble hand-to-mouth existence of his forebears. Older Tam’s dreams took a little longer to be realised, and it’s with young Tam, Conn’s son, that we see the first generation of the family go to university and move out of the working class, economically at least.
In large part a coming-of-age story, the present of the book, published in 1996, also shows us Tam in middle-age, contrasting the hopes and dreams of his seventeen-year-old self with the reality of how his life has turned out. Tam’s early story, I would guess, is heavily autobiographical – he is a working-class lad from a fictionalised version of McIlvanney’s birth town of Kilmarnock, with an education and aspirations to be a writer. The later years, I suspect, diverge more from actual events in McIlvanney’s life, but read very much as though we are reading his personal reflections, and perhaps glimpsing his own feelings of disappointment that life hadn’t turned out quite as glitteringly as he’d once dared to hope.
However, Tam’s story reflects the lives of so many Scots of his generation that it also tells the story of the nation in the latter half of the twentieth century. Growing up in the ‘50s in a country that had emerged from the second devastating war of the century determined that this time we really would make a better world, Tam had opportunities no previous generation of working class children had, not the least of which was free university education. For many families like Tam’s, this would be the first time when social mobility was a real possibility, with graduates able to lift themselves out of the pits and shipyards and factories into teaching, medicine, law. But McIlvanney shows the disconnect this caused for many between their working class roots and their middle class ambitions. As Tam, the wee lad from Graithnock, becomes Tom, Master of Arts, a teacher and writer, he sits uneasily between the two classes, neither fully one nor the other, and perhaps he never truly believes that he deserves the life he’s now living. As a result, he seems unable to avoid wrecking everything he achieves. And his feelings of personal failure mirror those of the nation, as those dreams of the ‘50s fade into the industrial devastation of the ‘80s and ‘90s, with Scotland too left disillusioned and angry.
The book is a wonderful mix of humour, nostalgia and pathos. Young Tam, with whom we spend by far the most time, is on the cusp of adulthood and in the midst of a desperate and very funny quest to lose his virginity. Although the period is a couple of decades earlier than my own teen years, I found the attitudes and social manners entirely recognisable, and described with real warmth and affection. It’s a man’s world, for sure, but the women are strong and opinionated, and give as good as they get. It’s Tam’s mother who is the driving force for him to go to University – his father, like so many men of that time, is struggling with the idea that his son won’t follow in his footsteps. Again, McIlvanney uses them to show the two opposing forces faced by the youth of that era – the push to leap into the adventure of the unknown, the pull to stay in the safety of the familiar.
I found middle-aged Tom just as believable, though less entertaining. His disappointment leads him to be argumentative and confrontational, to the point of driving away those closest to him. However, his journey home reminds him of who he once was and what his hopes were, and gives him time and space to reflect on who he now is and, to a degree, on what Scotland now is. I wondered how the tone might have changed had McIlvanney written the book ten or twenty years later, when his personal stature had grown to the point where almost every Scottish writer points to him as an influence, and when Scotland had achieved its own Parliament and revived its sense of national identity. But that would have been a different book, and not necessarily a better one. Another excellent novel from the pen of the Scottish master – an insightful and enjoyable look at a man and, through his story, at a nation. Highly recommended.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
When we first meet him, Tam Docherty, the first person narrator, is on his way from his home in Grenoble back to Graithnock, the Ayrshire town where he was born and bred. As he travels, he is visited by memories of his childhood and adolescence, his later life and marriage, but mostly of the summer of 1955 when, between leaving school and going to University, he worked in the local brickworks for a few months, and learned a little about life, girls and himself.
Tam is the grandson of the first Tam who was the central character in Docherty, McIlvanney’s earlier book set before and after WW1. In that book, the first Tam was determined that his son, Conn, would not follow him down the mines – that Conn would get an education and raise himself out of the hard-scrabble hand-to-mouth existence of his forebears. Older Tam’s dreams took a little longer to be realised, and it’s with young Tam, Conn’s son, that we see the first generation of the family go to university and move out of the working class, economically at least.
In large part a coming-of-age story, the present of the book, published in 1996, also shows us Tam in middle-age, contrasting the hopes and dreams of his seventeen-year-old self with the reality of how his life has turned out. Tam’s early story, I would guess, is heavily autobiographical – he is a working-class lad from a fictionalised version of McIlvanney’s birth town of Kilmarnock, with an education and aspirations to be a writer. The later years, I suspect, diverge more from actual events in McIlvanney’s life, but read very much as though we are reading his personal reflections, and perhaps glimpsing his own feelings of disappointment that life hadn’t turned out quite as glitteringly as he’d once dared to hope.
However, Tam’s story reflects the lives of so many Scots of his generation that it also tells the story of the nation in the latter half of the twentieth century. Growing up in the ‘50s in a country that had emerged from the second devastating war of the century determined that this time we really would make a better world, Tam had opportunities no previous generation of working class children had, not the least of which was free university education. For many families like Tam’s, this would be the first time when social mobility was a real possibility, with graduates able to lift themselves out of the pits and shipyards and factories into teaching, medicine, law. But McIlvanney shows the disconnect this caused for many between their working class roots and their middle class ambitions. As Tam, the wee lad from Graithnock, becomes Tom, Master of Arts, a teacher and writer, he sits uneasily between the two classes, neither fully one nor the other, and perhaps he never truly believes that he deserves the life he’s now living. As a result, he seems unable to avoid wrecking everything he achieves. And his feelings of personal failure mirror those of the nation, as those dreams of the ‘50s fade into the industrial devastation of the ‘80s and ‘90s, with Scotland too left disillusioned and angry.
The book is a wonderful mix of humour, nostalgia and pathos. Young Tam, with whom we spend by far the most time, is on the cusp of adulthood and in the midst of a desperate and very funny quest to lose his virginity. Although the period is a couple of decades earlier than my own teen years, I found the attitudes and social manners entirely recognisable, and described with real warmth and affection. It’s a man’s world, for sure, but the women are strong and opinionated, and give as good as they get. It’s Tam’s mother who is the driving force for him to go to University – his father, like so many men of that time, is struggling with the idea that his son won’t follow in his footsteps. Again, McIlvanney uses them to show the two opposing forces faced by the youth of that era – the push to leap into the adventure of the unknown, the pull to stay in the safety of the familiar.
I found middle-aged Tom just as believable, though less entertaining. His disappointment leads him to be argumentative and confrontational, to the point of driving away those closest to him. However, his journey home reminds him of who he once was and what his hopes were, and gives him time and space to reflect on who he now is and, to a degree, on what Scotland now is. I wondered how the tone might have changed had McIlvanney written the book ten or twenty years later, when his personal stature had grown to the point where almost every Scottish writer points to him as an influence, and when Scotland had achieved its own Parliament and revived its sense of national identity. But that would have been a different book, and not necessarily a better one. Another excellent novel from the pen of the Scottish master – an insightful and enjoyable look at a man and, through his story, at a nation. Highly recommended.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
January 13, 2014
I’ve a lot of time for William McIlvanney and I’ve read quite a bit of his stuff (even if I’ve not got round to updating Goodreads to reflect that) but for some reason I’d never got round to Docherty. I’ve had a copy of The Kiln in my possession for years but kept putting off reading it until I’d read Docherty which I think was a wise thing although your could read them the other way round.
Docherty just bowled me over. No one writes like McIlvanney and gets away with it. He piles metaphor upon metaphor and makes it work. It’s the kind of writing that your creative writing teacher would say was a no-no and they’d be right because it can go so badly wrong. But when it goes right it’s brilliant. Coupled with the fact that all the dialogue is in Scots—which is itself a highly picturesque language—this proved to be one very colourful read. I’ve no hesitation in giving it five stars.
Immediately after reading Docherty I picked up The Kiln which I didn’t enjoy as much (because I was expecting another book like Docherty) although it’s arguably the better book. ‘Better’ is subjective. Technically better is one thing. It’s technically better but the subject matter in Docherty is more enjoyable and the characters more likeable. It still deserves five stars.
I’ve written a long and detailed article covering both books which you can read on my blog here.
Docherty just bowled me over. No one writes like McIlvanney and gets away with it. He piles metaphor upon metaphor and makes it work. It’s the kind of writing that your creative writing teacher would say was a no-no and they’d be right because it can go so badly wrong. But when it goes right it’s brilliant. Coupled with the fact that all the dialogue is in Scots—which is itself a highly picturesque language—this proved to be one very colourful read. I’ve no hesitation in giving it five stars.
Immediately after reading Docherty I picked up The Kiln which I didn’t enjoy as much (because I was expecting another book like Docherty) although it’s arguably the better book. ‘Better’ is subjective. Technically better is one thing. It’s technically better but the subject matter in Docherty is more enjoyable and the characters more likeable. It still deserves five stars.
I’ve written a long and detailed article covering both books which you can read on my blog here.
September 23, 2013
This was a life changing book for me. Taught me what it was to be a man, from Ayrshire and I loved it.
January 9, 2025
Great writer - hilarious sense of humour. Reflections from mid life of male coming of age. At times for me it got “bogged down” in all the details of life and yet I recognised the agonies and “neuroticism” of adolescence. 7/10.
October 31, 2016
Sublime writing as always by McIlvanney. Possibly not the easiest book to read at times, but captures the period fantastically and the turmoil of life for a 17YO growing up to be a man in 1950's West Scotland.
January 27, 2014
Extraordinary. One of those books you don't want to end.
September 18, 2016
Pure excellence.
April 24, 2021
this one read like a poem and felt like an a24 movie - so beautifully written.
March 11, 2023
"But if he could shake off tackles, he couldn't do the same with his sense that it was fundamentally ludicrous for thirty boys to spend eighty minutes in sweaty pursuit of what is, after all, a symbolic testicle" (129).
"Why did you have to wait till you were dead before posterity got the message?" (169).
"The only motivation he could find for writing was the one with which he had started, a compulsion to try and understand the strangeness of things, a fascination with our hardly known selves" (170).
"You choose to be moral in his absence, for your own humanist reasons. And if He is there, you must be in with a shout of getting into heaven, even if it's just by the tradesman entrance, for you at least tried to live a moral life. In fact, maybe it should be by the main door. Your attempt at goodness will have none of the impurities in it of fear or that's-what-they-told-me-to-do or all Ah'll-swap-ye-a-good-life-for-a-seat-in-heaven. It exists sheer. The only basis for morality becomes love of your kind" (208).
"Before he passed out in the chair, he drank to his relatives. All his relatives" (209).
"'Uncle Charlie. How's it goin'?'
"'How's it goin', Tam? Ah used tae unbutton two buttons and it popped out at me, ready for action. Now Ah unzip all the way down an' send in a search party. That's about exactly how it's goin', son'" (209).
"As Tam's mother once said, 'Charlie's ma brother. An' Ah love him. But Ah have to admit he could pick a fight if he was on his own in Madame Tussaud's'" (210).
*He quotes Wordsworth: "That best portion of a good man's life,/His little, nameless, unremembered acts/Of kindness and of love" (213).
"Penicillin won't cure that. And when will they invent a condom for the head?" (223).
"Out in the street eventually, he moved through the town on a private escalator. This must be what euphoria meant" (229).
"Why did you have to wait till you were dead before posterity got the message?" (169).
"The only motivation he could find for writing was the one with which he had started, a compulsion to try and understand the strangeness of things, a fascination with our hardly known selves" (170).
"You choose to be moral in his absence, for your own humanist reasons. And if He is there, you must be in with a shout of getting into heaven, even if it's just by the tradesman entrance, for you at least tried to live a moral life. In fact, maybe it should be by the main door. Your attempt at goodness will have none of the impurities in it of fear or that's-what-they-told-me-to-do or all Ah'll-swap-ye-a-good-life-for-a-seat-in-heaven. It exists sheer. The only basis for morality becomes love of your kind" (208).
"Before he passed out in the chair, he drank to his relatives. All his relatives" (209).
"'Uncle Charlie. How's it goin'?'
"'How's it goin', Tam? Ah used tae unbutton two buttons and it popped out at me, ready for action. Now Ah unzip all the way down an' send in a search party. That's about exactly how it's goin', son'" (209).
"As Tam's mother once said, 'Charlie's ma brother. An' Ah love him. But Ah have to admit he could pick a fight if he was on his own in Madame Tussaud's'" (210).
*He quotes Wordsworth: "That best portion of a good man's life,/His little, nameless, unremembered acts/Of kindness and of love" (213).
"Penicillin won't cure that. And when will they invent a condom for the head?" (223).
"Out in the street eventually, he moved through the town on a private escalator. This must be what euphoria meant" (229).
February 17, 2021
The bad: there was far too much space given to details about having sex, it got very tedious very quickly; skipping around the timeline was a bit confusing (although McIlvanney did manage it slightly better than other attempts I have read); the lack of substantial plot has left me feeling rather dissatisfied now I have finished the book.
The good: the start was fun; the scenes at the brickworks composed a sub-story in themselves which was interesting and thoughtful, variously amusing and tense, and with a good conclusion; the reflections at the end of the book were interesting; the final two sections put a smile on my face and closed the work with a pleasing sense of energy and optimism.
The excellent: some of McIlvanney's uses of language are delightful; the main character's father, who doesn't get much space in the book but was for me the most interesting to hear about, and his last few sentences in this book are words I think maybe we could all do with hearing at some point in our lives; the philosophical musings on the napkins towards the end were, in their own right, an interesting way of looking at life.
Alas, for me, there was not enough of what I found to be excellent and far too much of what I found bad for this review to be higher. However, the demonstrated abilities to write well and create deep characters encourage me to give this author another chance with a different title.
The good: the start was fun; the scenes at the brickworks composed a sub-story in themselves which was interesting and thoughtful, variously amusing and tense, and with a good conclusion; the reflections at the end of the book were interesting; the final two sections put a smile on my face and closed the work with a pleasing sense of energy and optimism.
The excellent: some of McIlvanney's uses of language are delightful; the main character's father, who doesn't get much space in the book but was for me the most interesting to hear about, and his last few sentences in this book are words I think maybe we could all do with hearing at some point in our lives; the philosophical musings on the napkins towards the end were, in their own right, an interesting way of looking at life.
Alas, for me, there was not enough of what I found to be excellent and far too much of what I found bad for this review to be higher. However, the demonstrated abilities to write well and create deep characters encourage me to give this author another chance with a different title.
January 22, 2025
We meet Tom Docherty in 1955,as a 17 year old spending his summer working in a brick kiln, trying desperately but with a conspicuous lack of success to lose his virginity, feverishly reading and writing all the hours of the day, not sure he wants to go to University or stay at work and play football.
McIlvanney plumbs, in language of luminous precision, the tortured psyche of the Scottish character. It's Greek tragedy, hilarious to boot (Mail on Sunday)
Delightfully funny . . . [McIlvanney] is a compassionate writer and leaves an impression both of high seriousness and great charm (Sunday Telegraph)
On almost every page it offers matter for reflection and the sudden stab of emotion that comes from reading something that is truly evoked or created . . . It is rare and it is wonderful (Scotsman)
The best novel yet from the finest Scottish writer of our time (Allan Massie Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year))
A pitch-perfect blend of warm lyricism, limpid observation and excruciatingly funny comedy. It is a beguilingly brilliant portrait of the artist as an adolescent (Sunday Times)
It's a masterpiece and deserves reading more than once.
McIlvanney plumbs, in language of luminous precision, the tortured psyche of the Scottish character. It's Greek tragedy, hilarious to boot (Mail on Sunday)
Delightfully funny . . . [McIlvanney] is a compassionate writer and leaves an impression both of high seriousness and great charm (Sunday Telegraph)
On almost every page it offers matter for reflection and the sudden stab of emotion that comes from reading something that is truly evoked or created . . . It is rare and it is wonderful (Scotsman)
The best novel yet from the finest Scottish writer of our time (Allan Massie Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year))
A pitch-perfect blend of warm lyricism, limpid observation and excruciatingly funny comedy. It is a beguilingly brilliant portrait of the artist as an adolescent (Sunday Times)
It's a masterpiece and deserves reading more than once.
July 2, 2022
The coming of age of Tam Docherty. The focal point is the summer when he worked the kiln, firing bricks in his hometown of GRAITHNOCK, Scotland. From that point we radiate out to the different spokes that lead to disparate times in his life. His youth, his university days, time spent in a crumbling marriage, and his time in a borrowed bachelor flat in Edinburgh as he works on his writing. During this book, he learns that lofty dreams of changing the world for the better and reality are two different things...and to accept the gap between and make the best of it is the true work of a human being... especially when your own nature sabotages you. Accept that as well. Jack Laidlaw, the future Glasgow polis detective makes an occasional appearance. McIlvenney is a writer that believes in a shared world...a concept I've always appreciated. Like all of his books, a miniature philosophy course. Gives the brain a pleasant workout.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 31, 2025
I thought I was quite well-read, so was surprised that William McIlvanney’s work had passed me by. His 1996 novel, The Kiln, is a worthy award-winner. McIlvanney’s prose is dense and philosophical, so you need to pay attention, but his focus remains steadfastly at ground level, providing an unvarnished yet compassionate observation of human beings with all their foibles and failings. The dialogue in The Kiln is pitch perfect and McIlvanney has a talent for capturing the hilarity in the everyday – for me, there were more LOL moments in this book than most ‘comic’ novels I can remember. Looking forward to reading his other titles.
November 23, 2019
I remember I was disappointed with this when it first came out, but thought a re-read might impress me more. Although there's always some good writing in McIlvanney, this narrative is so lodged in the consciousness of the central character and so focused on how he failed to become a writer that I found it tedious and began reading more and more quickly to get it over. The darkness and some of the humour in the Scottish psyche are there, along with the evocation of the aches and confusions of adolescent masculinity, but these weren't enough to carry it for me.
April 3, 2020
Struggle to give 3 star rating but should give higher based on prose and full of literary references. But the story was just too much the lonely man through and through. What I also don't like about Ben Lerner who is a very intelligent and creative writer. Too much male angst and boring introspection. I can see on intellectual level the good but can't get the engagement. The other books recommend to me by same person who recommended this all had some similar feel but better stories and hey, about women.
August 3, 2024
Simply brilliant reading. As a Scots living abroad, entering McIlvenny's world always involves a degree of nostalgia. The introspectiveness of the characters set against the unsettling limitations of small-town reality evokes the true working class struggle, which most of us experienced in the latter part of the 20th century in that part of Britain. The depth of the characters reacting to the bleakness of life is what makes this writer an essential read for those who want to discover the social complexities of the periphery of the world before globalisation.
April 10, 2024
A middle aged, working class Scottish writer looks back at his life, especially his childhood and youth in Glasgow. His summer before university, working in a brick kiln, forms a central thread. Reminiscent (though published in 1996) of 1960s novels such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and Life at the Top. A treat to read.
March 27, 2025
This seemed like a series of vignettes about Tam, a 17 year old Scottish lad preoccupied with losing his virginity, among other things. Bits of it were funny but the lack of a more concrete narrative turned me off.
6/10
6/10
March 23, 2018
Couldn’t get into this one
January 2, 2023
I liked his earlier books. I liked the dark Scottish humour but it was repetitive, boring and totally self indulgent at times. Not impressed. Struggled to finish it
Want to read
March 6, 2014Description: Tom Docherty was seventeen in the summer of 1955. With school behind him and a summer job at a brick works, Tom had his whole life before him. Years later, alone in a rented flat in Edinburgh and lost in memories, Tom recalls the intellectual and sexual awakening of his youth. In looking back, Tom discovers that only by understanding where he comes from can he make sense of his life as it is now.
May 24, 2015
Philosophy delivered as soliloquy in phrases which make the heart sing, make you laugh out loud at insights into absurdities, make you gasp and think again in recognition of aspects of yourself, your life, mistakes you may have made and inward and outward journeys taken. As ever, eminently, quietly satisfying.
July 29, 2020
Every bit what I have come to expect from McIlvanney. Multiple stories told in one key narrative about finding your self and your voice and trusting them. Observation and awareness is outstanding. Funny, fraught, insightful, sensitive. Beautiful.
January 19, 2023
Stunned by the brilliant writing. Proof, in spades, that going deep doesn't slow down a great story if the writing is this good. I have written a novel about a boy of a similar age to McIlvanney's hero. In my heart of hearts I can see how much better my story would have been in McIlvanney's hands.
December 9, 2012
Vocabulary, language, A1. Read again before Ab-Initio.
March 4, 2015
I loved this. One of those moments I wished for half stars so I could bump it up a bit. My first from this author and it's one of his most recent. I'll now go back and look for the early ones.
May 13, 2021
If you are a thinking working class male from a time before Thatcher this pretty much sums it up. Would give it 6 stars if I could.
August 5, 2013
I managed to read the first 50 pages. Total waste of time.
Read
April 8, 2019beautifully written look at one man's struggle to live an authentic life.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews