Busconductor Hines

by James Kelman

Published 1 January 1984
Living in a bedsit, just coping with the boredom of being a busconductor, and fully aware that his plans to emigrate to Australia won't come to anything, Robert Hines is a young Glaswegian leading a pretty drab life. There are compensations, however, in his wife and child, and his eccentric, anarchic imagination. Kelman provides a brilliantly executed, uncompromising slice of Glasgow life - an intelligent, funny and humane novel. It was first published by Polygon in 1984.

A Chancer

by James Kelman

Published 10 April 1987
Tammas, a 20-year-old Glaswegian, is a loner and a compulsive gambler. Betting gives him as good a chance as any of discovering what he really seeks from life, since society offers him no prospect of a better alternative. James Kelman won the 1994 Booker Prize for How Late it Was, How Late.