Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

Under the cover of the 1st edition of Poor Things

Monstrously good fun

Poor Things is one of Alasdair Gray’s most popular and entertaining novels. It was inspired by many things including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen and Alasdair’s relationship with his second wife Morag - as Alasdair explains in these excerpts from a conversation with Kat in the last year of his life.

Audio transcript:

I was only, both as a child and well into my teens, I was only really fascinated by stories that had adventures in them and what would have been called fairy tales. I was certainly most influenced by Hans Anderson’s stories. Even though they’re called fairy tales there’s no fairies in any of them, that I can remember. But there are talking toys and creatures and animals and a most strong sense of loss that goes through them. Of time passing away. Which children are quite conscious of. And therefore stories which mention these things do make strong sense to them. Certainly did to me….

One of the heroes of my book, Godwin Baxter, is a slightly monstrous looking person who has been brought up as, or has been introduced to the world as the probably illegitimate son of a great Scottish surgeon. And the implication is that he is in fact an experimental achievement created by his father grafting the parts together. I have it that he, by grafting the [baby’s] brain of a pregnant woman who’s committed suicide into the mother’s body, he gives her new life. I’m quite pleased with that book because the 3 main characters are all of them rather innocent and quite good people. They mean no harm to anybody and try to do all the good they can….

My wife Morag at one point she dropped a hint that the heroine may have been based partly upon herself. But she was being a bit unduly modest. I would say undoubtedly she inspired the book somehow. Because the idea of it came to me after we were married and living here together. And er… ooh aye. [closing music]

You can listen to the full recordings of Alasdair reading and talking about Poor Things at the bottom of this page.

Postcard of the cover design for Poor Things from the launch event. Archie McCandless and Bella and Godwin Baxter are seated on the sofa

Alasdair’s original drawing of Godwin Baxter which he gave to Kat

A personal favourite

Poor Things is many people’s personal favourite of Alasdair’s novels, including Kat’s. He asked her to read an early version and his dedication in her copy of the book shows he enjoyed it as much as she did.

An early typescript of Poor Things

Alasdair’s dedication in Kat’s copy of Poor Things

While Alasdair’s relationship with his first wife Inge is central to his novel Lanark and her picture appears on the cover, along with their son Andrew, it was Alasdair’s second wife Morag who inspired him to write Poor Things. She is pictured inside the skull at the start of the book and he gave her an original version of the picture as a Christmas present in 1992.

The original version of Alasdair’s drawing of Morag that appears in Poor Things

Scrapbook reviews for Poor Things

Alasdair’s work was fairly well-known by the time Poor Things was published, so Mora’s scrapbooks feature a lot of press cuttings from 1992.

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.

Bringing the dead back to life

“Is it that men cannot think of a liberated woman without seeing her as being some sort of monster.”

Stephen Amidon, Financial Times, Sept-1992

Riches beyond compare

“Can a man “make” a feminist? It is the final riddle of a mesmerising mind game in which not even the heroine, and certainly not the author, can be trusted.”

Gavin Wallace, The Scotsman, Sept-1992

Bella figura

“Gray combines all these ingredients in a fiction that bubbles with vitality and squeaks with gleeful pleasure in its own bravura.”

Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Sept-1992

The Guardian fiction prize

“Gray is utterly his own man and… Poor Things… is as irresistible as cream cakes and as nourishing as lentils.”

Philip Hensher, The Guardian, Sept-1992

Jekyll & Hyde with added sex

“If Gray had been content either to create a female Frankenstein or to give a new zest to the legend of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Poor Things might have been a funny and original tale for the politically correct 1990s.”

Kate Chisholm, Sept-1992

Cruel and tender fight

“Gray’s great theme is always the tension between tenderness and cruelty, in sexual relationships, between parents and children, and in society.”

Maggie Gee, The Observer, Sept-1992

Alasdair reads Poor Things

In 2019 Kat created a series of recordings with Alasdair reading and talking about his own books and other favourites, including 3 featuring Poor Things.

You can listen to all the recordings on our YouTube channel and find out more about the story behind them in Conversational inspiration.