A real Glasgow archipelago

by Jack Withers, Alasdair Gray (Introduction)

A Real Glasgow Archipelago is Jack Withers' lively, streetwise and passionate depiction of modern city life. The nature of his own city is his subject. His concern is with the way individual people have become like a chain of separate islands - deeply touched by, but unable to connect with the forces of politics, economics and culture.

In Glasgow's and Scotland's political impasse, Withers desists from prescriptive solutions. In a work which movingly and comically explores the nature of modern life for men and women everywhere, this book challenges us to find our own sense of inner resolution.

'Let Glasgow flourish, tovarish. What perish? No flourish.

Huv ye ever seen an orange walk?
Naw, but ah watched ma auntie Alice go bananas.

Nostalgia when ye think back tae those good old days when thir wis nae supermarkets or noisy motorways. Nae muggers nor nae burglars. Nae communters nor nae computers. Only friendly slums and clanking trams, unlocked doors and caring mums. But dreaming of a coming... what? An educated and emancipated proletariat? Some dream. One that tastes now like so much sour cream. Now that we are all so literate?'

96 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 1993

About the author

Jack Withers is a Scottish poet. He was born in pre-World War Two Glasgow into what was then considered to be an ordinary family living in public housing. His family were like all those around them in their efforts to keep body and soul together through work, subject to the vagaries of the free market. Like most of his peers he left school at the earliest opportunity and joined the search for a job. Years, and many gainful, and some painful, positions later, he took up writing. He writes about what he experiences in the world.