Something Leather by Alasdair Gray
Under the cover of the 1st edition of Something Leather
Feminism and fetishism?
Something Leather is about the love-lives of four central female characters from a different social groups from 1963 to 1990. It was inspired by Alasdair Gray’s conversations with many different women including Kat. And it is testimony to Alasdair’s fanatical focus on truth and honesty that many women today still find it engaging and empowering.
“I decided to get my tattoo after a difficult breakup (a classic reason to get a tattoo!). Around the same time I was reading Something Leather and was really struck by Alasdair’s description of the use of the wasp iconography that runs through Something Leather.
He said that it was inspired by a woman he had seen at the train station in leathers, with a shaved head and wasp tattoos on her face. She had the self-contained power of a person whose aesthetic was for herself and uninfluenced by male desires, which felt poignant at the time! No regrets, I still love it.”
June at the start of chapter 1 of Something Leather
June at the start of chapter 13 of Something Leather
A characteristic request
“You must tell me anything you hate in it! I won’t get upset and we’ll still be friends!”
Alasdair Gray wrote Something Leather when he and Kat were spending a lot of time together and she was researching and writing about lesbian dress and identity. It’s a collection of stories that eventually evolved into a novel. And Alasdair credited Kat with getting him started on it and asked for her thoughts and feedback as he wrote it:
Page 3 of Alasdair’s 1988 letter and an early typescript of Something Leather
“Anyway, I want to invent a curriculum vitae for a very rich, intelligent but slightly mad and lonely woman who has an instinctive hatred of her own class (for reasons the chapter explains) and is painfully shy with the lower-class fold she wants to relate to: who is therefore an onanistic spinster for the first 30 years of her life, but does work. I’ll be grateful for any suggestions you can offer, and any comments on the other material in this.”
Page 1 of Alasdair’s 1989 letter asking for information and feedback
Alasdair’s sketch of Kat in her copy of Something Leather
Transcript of page 3 of Alasdair’s letter dated Feb 1988:
…writing these days. I told him (cut out the details) I sent it to him. He wrote excitedly back that he felt it was the start of a great short novel, and offered an advance of £10,000. I owe the Inland Revenue and the bank and some people a lot of money. I wrote back asking for an advance of £30,000. He said yes, ten days ago. A month or 6 weeks will pass while we discuss the clauses of the contract, but then I’ll have an immediate payment of £10,000 and things will get easier.
Now, I have distinct ideas for the next 14 pages of this book, which I’ll show you when I’ve had them typed: BUT this is the first time I’ve begun a novel without a clear notion of an end. So far my main ideas have been got from dealings and conversations with women friends: so I – a little nervously – show it to you. I’d like to talk to you about it when we next meet, though first you’d better see the pages I haven’t written yet. The story is going to take a comic political twist.
Yours, with love – and with love from Bethsy - Alasdair (Uncle)
Transcript of Alasdair’s 1989 letter including the ending on page 2:
Printed header: Alasdair Gray 39 Kersland St, Glasgow, G12 8BP Telephone, 041-334-2146
20 March 1989
Dear Katrina –
This aint finished yet! And the chapter which will eventually lead on to the bit I want your advice on is The Distant Cousin of a Queen [underlined]. I like the idea of Judy (who is that) going to the Courtauld Institute and there qualifying for the Burrel. So what I need to know is the qualifications a rich, [very crossed out] aristocratically connected girl would need to go to the Courtauld? And what she should study there? The last question has to fit in with the department of the Burrel she works for, and here it is essential that we invent a non-existent [underlined] Burrel [section crossed out] department. They have, I suspect, a historic costume department, Medieval copes and Elizabethan garments – they probably have nothing from the twentieth century, [but crossed out] I think they’ve nothing ethnographic… but is there an interface [underlined] between the Courtauld and ethnographic artifacts?
Anyway, I want to invent a curriculum vitae for a very rich, intelligent but slightly mad and lonely woman who has an instinctive hatred of her own class (for reasons the chapter explains) and is painfully shy with the lower-class fold she wants to relate to: who is therefore an onanistic spinster for [much of her life crossed out] the first 30 years of her life, but does work. I’ll be grateful for any suggestions you can offer, and any comments on the other material in this – you must tell me anything you hate in it! I won’t get upset and we’ll still be friends!
Love from Alasdair
Scrapbook reviews for Something Leather
Something Leather was widely reviewed and the critical response was as varied as the book’s source material. These are some of the press cuttings from Mora’s scrapbooks for 1990.
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.
Scot gives his women a good hiding
“It is in relating the pasts of June, Senga and Donalda that the book is extraordinarily good. At various points their lives have unwittingly crossed - city life is blind. For a city as ugly-glamorous and uncompromising as Glasgow, full of flash and blackness, Gray’s style is just right.”
Candida McWilliam, July-1990
Flippant Glesga rudery
“A confection of self-indulgent tripe. There I have finally had to give Gray what he wants: Miss Cane, with a southern accent, cracks the whip.”
Victoria Glendinning, July-1990
Up to mischief with June
“He is truthful altogether, but at the same time a splendid storyteller, in command of a vivid and vigorous prose. His book is touching, bracing, and very funny.”
Paul Driver, Financial Times, July-1990
High heels and handcuffs
“There are individual elements to admire… However Something Leather remains a book that shouldn't have happened. Grey is a magnificent writer but for this novel he'll need to warn Tam the bam to sharpen his chip.”
Harry Ritchie, July-1990
Explore more…
Conversational inspiration
Conversations through books in the last year of Alasdair Gray’s life.
Inked art
Read some of the stories behind Alasdair Gray tattoos including Bridget’s.
External links…
Los Angeles Times review by Christopher Goodrich of Alasdair Gray’s Something Leather
You can hear Alasdair reading from his own and other favourite books on our YouTube channel