James Yorkston – författare

Rural West Cork, Ireland. Two Kids, Joseph and Paul, and their struggling, poet father, Fraser, are battling grief and poverty. When a letter arrives with a summons to Dublin and the promise of publication, it offers a chink of light - the hope of rescue. But Dublin is a long, wet and hungry way from West Cork in the mid-70s, especially when they have no money - just the clothes they stand up in and an old, battered suitcase.So begins an almost anti-roadtrip of flipsides and contradictions - dreams and nightmares, promises and disappointments, generosity and meanness, unconditional love and shocking neglect.In simple, beautiful, lyrical prose, James Yorkston's new novel takes us on that trip, as seen through the eyes of a brave and resourceful but poor and frightened child. It tells of the emptying, paralysing pain of grief and loss, tempered only by the hope of rescue and the redemption of parental love. It also tells of Fraser's love for his children's dead mother, as hidden within the battered suitcase is Fraser's heart-breaking collection of poems - The Book of the Gaels.

Meet Tommy Bruce, an anti-hero as unlike his historical namesake as could be imagined - very nearly spineless and not at all the man to save himself, until you push him too far...Tommy Bruce is washed-up in a ramshackle hotel inherited from dead parents in the armpit of Perthshire. Saddled with debt, grotty premises that are falling down around him and a crippling loneliness, Tommy is slowly but determinedly drinking himself and his business out of existence.Until one day, out of the blue, Fiona McLean blows into Tommy's life and the hotel. With the light she brings, Tommy's fortunes might just be turning around. But in her wake has also slipped in darkness - names and faces from the past who mean Tommy no goodwill at all, criminal forces that threaten to ruin him, the hotel and what little happiness he's managed, haplessly, to cobble together.