Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington
A riotous urban picaresque, richly laced with black humour, Jeff Torrington's comic novel marks a milestone in Scottish literature. 'This tale of a week in the life of Tam Clay, Gorbals slum-dweller, father-in-waiting and wordsmith manqué, is funny from beginning to end... As Tam stumbles through the drink-sodden world of the Gorbals underclass of the sixties, when a house in Castlemilk was an ambition, he embarks on a mini-odyssey of self-discovery while blinding the reader with literary legerdemain' - Ian Black, The Herald. Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.
"A gamey, pungent, vulgar sprawl of a novel, somewhere in the hinterland where Damon Runyon meets James Joyce" * Observer *
"Swing Hammer Swing! is a great novel" * James Kelman *
"A crazily good read.. this [is a] fantastic first novel" * Scotland on Sunday *
"It is such a good novel, with such energy of language and gift for striking off memorable scenes, that its appearance at any time would be welcomed . . . It prompts reflection on how much it would have benefited Scottish writers if 20 years ago a novel had been published with Jeff Torrington's absolute lack of compromise or temporising explanation in the use of Glasgow material and dialect" * The Scotsman *
"This might be the Gorbals, and the banter might be exchanged on the steps of tramp-haunted urinals, but the reference points are Nietzsche, Pascal, Chekhov and Sartre'" * Independent *
"Swing Hammer Swing! is a great novel" * James Kelman *
"A crazily good read.. this [is a] fantastic first novel" * Scotland on Sunday *
"It is such a good novel, with such energy of language and gift for striking off memorable scenes, that its appearance at any time would be welcomed . . . It prompts reflection on how much it would have benefited Scottish writers if 20 years ago a novel had been published with Jeff Torrington's absolute lack of compromise or temporising explanation in the use of Glasgow material and dialect" * The Scotsman *
"This might be the Gorbals, and the banter might be exchanged on the steps of tramp-haunted urinals, but the reference points are Nietzsche, Pascal, Chekhov and Sartre'" * Independent *
Jeff Torrington (1935 – 2008) was born in the Gorbals, Glasgow. He had a wide-ranging career, working as a packing case nailer, a cinema projectionist, a fruit-market porter, labourer, postman and as a fireman on the railways. He wrote novels and short stories, drawing on the changing face of modern Scotland. His first novel Swing Hammer Swing! took 30 years to write and won the 1992 Whitbread Book of the Year Award.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780749397470 |
| ISBN 10 | 0749397470 |
| Title | Swing Hammer Swing! |
| Author | Jeff Torrington |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 1993-10-25 |
| Number of pages | 416 |
| Prizes | Winner of Whitbread Book Awards: First Novel Category 1992, Winner of Whitbread Book Awards: Book of the Year 1992, Winner of Whitbread Prize (First Novel) 1992 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |