From Scenes Like These cover art

From Scenes Like These

The Rediscovered Scottish 20th-Century Classic
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From Scenes Like These

By: Gordon M. Williams
Narrated by: Chris Reilly
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About this listen

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FIRST EVER BOOKER PRIZE

'A masterpiece . . . demands to be read' - Douglas Stuart, author of SHUGGIE BAIN

'An extraordinary novel' - Michael Magee, author of CLOSE TO HOME

It’s the west of Scotland in the 1950s. New houses are going up. Factories are opening.

But Dunky Logan, a 15-year-old brought up in a tenement flat in working-class Kilcaddie, is ditching school to be a labourer on a local farm. Dead set on becoming a hard case, he wants to work shoulder to shoulder with so-called real men.

Irish Catholic Mary O’Donnell arrives at the farmhouse as the new maid. She is pregnant - no boyfriend in sight. But she’s smart, and she has a plan to get herself up in the world.

As Dunky is swallowed up by a vicious cycle of violence, betrayal, and booze, Mary becomes entangled in a savage family feud.

Now there’s no going back, not for either of them.

With an introduction by James Robertson

©1968 Gordon M. Williams (P)2025 Macmillan Publishers International Limited Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Urban World Literature

Critic reviews

A devastating study of 1950s Scottish adolescence by one of the most consummate stylists of the whole post-war era. From Scenes Like These is a genuine lost classic just waiting to be rediscovered by a new generation of readers (DJ Taylor, author of Orwell: The New Life)
One of the finest British novels of its era. A landmark in postwar fiction. A brave and brilliant book (Liam McIlvanney, author of The Quaker)
A coming-of-age novel that positively crackles with fury and frustration, From Scenes Like These deserves a place among the classics of twentieth century Scottish literature (Malachy Tallack, author of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz)
I loved it - it gets to the heart of questions around community, masculinity and opportunity in post-war rural Scotaland. Reading the novel is to be reminded of how much has changed, and how little. (Tom Newlands, author of Only Here, Only Now)

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