The Good Times

James Kelman, one of the finest writers in the English language and the key figure in the rebirth of Scottish literature, has often been compared to Chekhov for the humanity and the integrity of his vision. The twenty first-person narratives in The Good Times continue that tradition, portraying ordinary people in a language that makes a glory of their lives. The narrators are men and boys who come face-to-face with uncomfortable truths, whether musing on mortality, encountering betrayals both devastating and trivial, or struggling to understand women or work. Tender, lyrical, darkly humorous, The Good Times is a dazzling collection from one of the great short story writers of our time.

James Kelman is an author, editor, and essayist born in Glasgow in 1946. His 1989 novel, A Disaffection, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, and was short-listed for the Booker Prize, which he had previously won in 1994 for How Late It Was, How Late. He won the Book of the Year Awards from the Scottish Arts Council and the Saltire Society for Kieron Smith, Boy. He was also short-listed for a 2016 Saltire Society Award for his novel, Dirt Road.