From Scenes Like These [Paperback]

Shortlisted for the first ever Booker Prize

'A masterpiece'  Douglas Stuart, author ofShuggie Bain

'An extraordinary novel'  Michael Magee, author ofClose to Home

'It deserves its modern classic status' The Times

Its the west of Scotland in the 1950s. New houses are going up. Factories are opening.

But Dunky Logan, a 15-year-old brought up in a tenement flat in working-class Kilcaddie, is ditching school to be a labourer on a local farm. Dead set on becoming a hard case, he wants to work shoulder to shoulder with so-called real men.

Irish Catholic Mary ODonnell arrives at the farmhouse as the new maid. She is pregnant - no boyfriend in sight. But shes smart, and she has a plan to get herself up in the world.

As Dunky is swallowed up by a vicious cycle of violence, betrayal, and booze, Mary becomes entangled in a savage family feud.

Now theres no going back, not for either of them.

With an introduction by James Robertson.

Gordon M. Williamswas born in Paisley in 1934. After he completed national service with the Royal Air Force in Germany, Willams began his career as a reporter for the Johnstone Advertiser, before moving to England and becoming an author in the mid-1960s. His novels includeWalk Dont Walk,Big Morning Blues,The Camp,The Upper Pleasure GardenandFrom Scenes Like These, which was shortlisted for the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969. His novelThe Siege of Trenchers Farmwas adapted into the filmStraw Dogs, directed by Sam Peckinpah.

Working at the arts magazineScene, Williams shared an office with the playwright Tom Stoppard. With Terry Venables, he wrote the beloved football novelThey Used to Play on Grass, and laterlS'