Lanark: A Life In 4 Books by Alasdair Gray
Under the cover of the 1st edition of Lanark
A personal tragedy?
Alasdair Gray’s first and most famous novel Lanark is subtitled A Life In 4 Books and is strongly autobiographical.
In 1993 Alasdair sent a cassette tape to his sister Mora with an audio letter explaining that he was forced to focus on the miserable bits of their childhood in Lanark, because he was writing a tragedy. Alasdair underlines this point by reading a happy bit of Lanark and asking Mora if she remembers the incident on which it was based.
Audio transcript:
This island looked like a bright toy he could lift off the smoothly ribbed rippling sea and he seemed to recognize it. He thought, did I have a sister once and did we play together on the grassy top of that cliff among the yellow gorse bushes? Yes, on that cliff behind the marine observatory on a day like this in the summer holidays.
Did we bury a tin box under a gorse root in a rabbit hole? There was a half crown piece in it and a silver sixpence dated from that year. And a piece of our mother's jewellery. And a cheap little notebook with a message to ourselves when we grew up. Did we promise to dig it up in 25 years and dug it up 2 days later to make sure it hadn't been stolen? And were we not children then? And was I not happy?
You may remember Mora that that was Milport? And we did something like that at Milport above the Lion Rock and not far from the Marine Observatory Station.
I’m answering your letter by voice partly because I almost find it easier. The point is that I remember lots of happy times we had together, ones you mentioned in your letter. And I had to leave them out of Lanark because I was planning a tragedy! So I only took the dreary things that would make the tragedy seem likely.
Scroll to the bottom to listen to Alasdair reading other excerpts from Lanark together with the full recording of Alasdair’s audio letter to Mora in Lanark: Chapter 40 Provan.
Lanark 1st edition cover 1981: Andrew, Alasdair and Inge appear bottom centre
Familiar faces and places
Lanark is dedicated to Alasdair’s son Andrew. And just as the story is based on Alasdair’s own life, the drawings in it are full of familiar family faces and places.
Lanark Book 1 print: The writer Jim Kelman looks across at Alasdair’s Aunt Annie
Lanark Book 4 print: Alasdair’s Dad sits looking out at us above the Book Four title
Lanark Book 2 print
Lanark Book 3 print
The handwritten notes on Book One say (left to right):
Barlinnie Lad, Riddrie Public Library, A pal of mine with a Glasgow face (Jim Kelman, by name), Cumbernauld Road with a wee shop seen from Canal Bridge, A girl I used to know called Margaret Gray (no relation), Aunt Annie, Riddrie Primary School, Provan Gasworks and an Iron Foundary [with a name we can’t make out]
The handwritten notes on Book Four say (clockwise – with apologies for any misreading):
Loch Leven with Island Castle (follow the arrow some way), Wallace Stirling Monument, Campsies, Grangemouth, Kirk of Shotts, Face of big bloke based on Malcolm Hood! [also in the photo of the Lanark party in Who Is Alasdair Gray?] Arthur’s Seat, Castle, Edinburgh, Tinto, East Kilbride, Catkin Braes, Rutherglen Town Hall, Ardrossan, Portincross, Arran, Anndale, Lochranza, Millport, Rothesay, Dad apparently on a Pap of Jura, Dunoon, Holy Loch, Lake of Menteith with Island Priory (follow arrow some way), Cobbler, Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, Tae, Dundee, Aberdeen, Dounray
Unruly inspiration
Like many other people our own resident writer, Anita, first encountered Alasdair Gray through Lanark. Which she read while completing an MA in English Literature at Edinburgh University:
“I was having regrets: turning down a place at art college had been a mistake. Lanark was a highlight on a grim journey. In Lanark, I was excited to find a writer-illustrator in complete control of his own world. I knew I would carry Lanark through my life, and I still have my well-thumbed undergraduate copy. It has certainly influenced me. Nothing I’ve written has stayed obediently in one world or one timeframe, or in the right order!”
Scrapbook reviews for Lanark
Lanark was Alasdair’s first published novel and since he was an unknown author, it wasn’t as widely reviewed as his later work. These are some of the press cuttings from Mora’s scrapbooks for 1981.
Select each book review to enlarge it. Or use this link to read a transcript of the opening and closing paragraphs and get a flavour of each critic’s response.
Glasgow will never be the same after Lanark
“It is certainly a quite extraordinary achievement, the most remarkable thing done in Scottish fiction for a very long time. It has changed the landscape.”
Allan Massie, The Scotsman, Feb-1981
Glasgow phantasmagoria
“Alasdair Gray’s Lanark has all the makings of a cult book. It is staggeringly long, has taken 10 years to write, and comes embellished with elaborate allegorical frontispieces, absurdist road maps and rhyming chapter headings.”
Hermione Lee, Feb-1982
The theocracies of unthank
“Lanark’s ambitions are large and so are its achievements. Its compass extends far beyond the Clyde valley: indeed it's rare to come across a novel so rooted in a particular city and yet so accessible to those outside.”
William Boyd, Times Literary Supplement, Feb-1981
The cannibal culture
“Cannibalism is for Gray the pattern of all human relations: ‘Man is the pie that bakes and eats itself and the recipe is separation’.”'
Eric Korn, Feb-1981
Alasdair reads Lanark
In 2019 Kat created a series of recordings with Alasdair reading and talking about his own books and other favourites. These are 3 of the recordings relating to Lanark including Alasdair’s 1993 audio letter to his sister Mora.
You can listen to all the recordings on our YouTube channel and find out more about the story behind them in Conversational inspiration.
Alasdair reads a happy bit from Lanark and explains why most of it is so miserable.
Alasdair reads the best known passage from his novel Lanark.
Alasdair reads his own favourite excerpt from Lanark: Chapter 44. End.
Explore more…
Blood and ink
A Gray Space was born out of the blood and ink of Alasdair Gray tattoos.
A Gray’s place
After Alasdair Gray died his flat was cleared and sold. But you can still visit it.
External links…
Alasdair Gray’s novel Lanark | Education Scotland hosted by Alan Riach - poet, Professor of Scottish Literature and a friend of Alasdair’s
BBC Arts - The Novels That Shaped Our World. How Glasgow inspired Alasdair Gray's great novel Lanark
William Boyd - reading Lanark will leave its trace on your life
You can hear Alasdair reading more from Lanark in Alasdair Gray rereads on our YouTube channel