James Kelman

Busted Scotch

"This is a peak literary experience, a reminder of why we ever took up reading fiction in the first place."—Alex Chisholm, Boston Phoenix

Busted Scotch is a selection by James Kelman of thirty-five short stories—most of them published in this country for the first time-from over two decades of his work. They reveal the author as a tough-minded master of the short form, which he infuses with his unique brand of bleak comedy and his absolute belief in the primacy of his character's language and culture.

"Busted Scotch brings to mind, at various moments, such diverse masterpieces of the short story as James Joyce's Dubliners, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and the parables of Kafka. But in his humanity and integrity, the writer Kelman recalls at his best . . . is Chekhov."—A. O. Scott, Village Voice

"There is the authenticity of the lives that emerge from these pages. No other writer gives or has given the working class its own say on its own terms with such creative empathy as Kelman."—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe

"Busted Scotch is filled with strong stories and the best of them are fiercely beautiful. . . . [A] brilliant fictive universe."—Richard Burgin, New York Times Book Review

"James Kelman is one of the new, true masters of millennial English, and his best stories are great stories, as dark, tough-minded, and funny as any I've read in years."—Russell Banks