The Vintage Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction

Until just the past decade, editor Kravitz states in his introduction, publishers in Scotland remained ""more interested in resurrecting dead writers as opposed to looking for new ones."" As recently as 1994, James Kelman's selection as the Booker Prize winner (for How Late It Was, How Late) sparked controversy in Britain and abroad, with some reviewers claiming that Kelman's phonetic Glasgow speech could be considered a foreign language. But new Scottish writers, led by Kelman and Irvine Welsh, are now a vibrant presence on the contemporary literary scene, giving voice to the Scottish urban working class. This compendious collection showcases writers who have made a splash abroad, but also ones known mostly to small reading groups in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Kelman is represented by an excerpt from ""The Busconductor Hines,"" a surprisingly tender account of the daily life of a Glasgow bus conductor. A sampling from Welsh's Trainspotting comes as no surprise, but it's a trenchant selection. Subtitled ""The First Shag in Ages,"" it follows junkie antihero Renton as he seeks female companionship, with tragicomic results. An excerpt from Janice Galloway's The Trick Is to Keep Breathing is the oblique testament of a woman edging toward despair. Alison Fell's ""There's Tradition for You"" is an absorbing monologue in the stream-of-consciousness vein. More conventional writers also have a place in the collection: Duncan Williamson's ""Mary and the Seal"" revisits a traditional folktale, and Brian McCabe's ""Not About the Kids"" employs a classic story arc, following a family man who wanders into strange territory. Seeking as broad a sampling as possible, Kravitz has chosen to include a staggering 47 writers, which guarantees some variation in quality and makes certain selections so short they barely leave an impression. Still, this collection testifies to the power and broad reach of the current generation of Scottish writers. (Dec.)