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Gentlemen of the West
Gentlemen of the West, Agnes Owens' debut novel, was first published in 1984 to wide critical acclaim. The novel follows the humorous exploits of Mac, a young bricklayer, who, along with a colourful cast of characters, seeks solace and escape in the convivial atmosphere of the Paxton Arms and the levelling influence of alcohol. Each chapter feels like a self-contained episode, but this engaging novel is a cleverly constructed, coherent narrative that is a darkly humorous portrayal of working-class life.
With sharp and inventive language, the novel skilfully balances drama and comedy, making you root for the underdog.
'A moving picture of a hard, surprising world which is forcing a young man to understand it and himself' – Alasdair Grey
'Accomplished and resonant and . . . always informed with a comic astringency' – The Scotsman
'Simultaneously funny and unflinching . . . an economy of language worthy of Ernest Hemingway or Muriel Spark' – Dani Garavelli
Published to celebrate Agnes Owens' centenary year in 2026.
With sharp and inventive language, the novel skilfully balances drama and comedy, making you root for the underdog.
'A moving picture of a hard, surprising world which is forcing a young man to understand it and himself' – Alasdair Grey
'Accomplished and resonant and . . . always informed with a comic astringency' – The Scotsman
'Simultaneously funny and unflinching . . . an economy of language worthy of Ernest Hemingway or Muriel Spark' – Dani Garavelli
Published to celebrate Agnes Owens' centenary year in 2026.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1984
About the author
Agnes Owens
13 books30 followersAgnes Owens was a Scottish author. She was born in Milngavie in 1926 and spent most of her life on the west coast of Scotland. She has been married twice and raised seven children, also working as a cleaner, typist and factory worker.
Via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_O...
Via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_O...
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 10, 2023
This was my first experience of reading Owens; such a wonderful experience to discover a new writer with her whole repertoire yet to come.
She writes with a deadpan gothic style, and with a down-to-earth emphasis on ordinary people, with a blunt wit.
Gentlemen of the West was originally published as a novel, though often seen as a series of short stories. At the time it was published short stories were considered more difficult to market, so Owens rewrote them with some continuity, and I think that works really well.
It’s a short novel, just 120 pages, which in itself probably contributed to its lack of success, giving the erroneous impression that Owens was not a proper author, as she only wrote short stories and novellas, and was a part-time writer, with a working-class day job as a cleaner and typist in the Vale of Leven, near Dumbarton. This was her first published work, when she was 58, published in 1984.
The book’s protagonist, Mac, is a 22 year old bricklayer, who is just beginning to realise that his future is not in his home town. It is the mid-1980s, old industries are vanishing, unemployment is soaring, with the country was in deep recession the area is feeling the pinch more than most.
Bored and listless, in a rare sober moment, he wanders the fields of his youth..
Chapter by chapter Mac’s becomes more troubled; he remains unemployed after months, his close friend has died of drink and exposure, and he has been arrested as an accomplice to a pointless crime.
Though the first couple of chapters read very much as self-contained short stories, after the chapter ‘Up Country’, the characters are authentic and striking, as are the various hardships they face in their lives. As the novel proceeds the humour is darker, and there is less of it, but very much to the benefit of the story, fewer laughs but much more poignant.
I had read one of the chapters, Christmas in the Paxton, previously, but without the context of what happens earlier, it is much less appreciated. It actually contains one of the key moments of the novel, which would not be understood in short story form.
A strength of Owens is in the description of her characters, often homeless, alcoholic, or suffering with mental problems, but, just ordinary people struggling at an extraordinary time.
In an interview in 2008 she said..
Though this did appear as short stories, it is much better read as a novel, which enables the characters to be drawn more deeply, and to earn the reader’s sympathy, or otherwise, accordingly.
Here’s a couple of clips..
and, as he ponders a break-in to a wealthy house in the neighbourhood with a drunken friend..
She writes with a deadpan gothic style, and with a down-to-earth emphasis on ordinary people, with a blunt wit.
Gentlemen of the West was originally published as a novel, though often seen as a series of short stories. At the time it was published short stories were considered more difficult to market, so Owens rewrote them with some continuity, and I think that works really well.
It’s a short novel, just 120 pages, which in itself probably contributed to its lack of success, giving the erroneous impression that Owens was not a proper author, as she only wrote short stories and novellas, and was a part-time writer, with a working-class day job as a cleaner and typist in the Vale of Leven, near Dumbarton. This was her first published work, when she was 58, published in 1984.
The book’s protagonist, Mac, is a 22 year old bricklayer, who is just beginning to realise that his future is not in his home town. It is the mid-1980s, old industries are vanishing, unemployment is soaring, with the country was in deep recession the area is feeling the pinch more than most.
Bored and listless, in a rare sober moment, he wanders the fields of his youth..
Yes, these were the days of real adventure, real heroes and real villains. Now it was all grind, booze or thrush to get by on the dole.
Chapter by chapter Mac’s becomes more troubled; he remains unemployed after months, his close friend has died of drink and exposure, and he has been arrested as an accomplice to a pointless crime.
Though the first couple of chapters read very much as self-contained short stories, after the chapter ‘Up Country’, the characters are authentic and striking, as are the various hardships they face in their lives. As the novel proceeds the humour is darker, and there is less of it, but very much to the benefit of the story, fewer laughs but much more poignant.
I had read one of the chapters, Christmas in the Paxton, previously, but without the context of what happens earlier, it is much less appreciated. It actually contains one of the key moments of the novel, which would not be understood in short story form.
You could say that Mick and Baldy were the true gentlemen of the west. Generous, treacherous, vicious and kindly with no admiration for the rich and successful. Yet the difference between them and me was that I liked working.
A strength of Owens is in the description of her characters, often homeless, alcoholic, or suffering with mental problems, but, just ordinary people struggling at an extraordinary time.
In an interview in 2008 she said..
I prefer to write about people that are just condemned, maybe, from the start. You know, maybe their environment, or their parents or they don’t have a chance and they end up being despised. I prefer to give people like that a voice.
Though this did appear as short stories, it is much better read as a novel, which enables the characters to be drawn more deeply, and to earn the reader’s sympathy, or otherwise, accordingly.
Here’s a couple of clips..
I followed the path deeper into the wood fighting through ferns which were as tall as myself. It was getting harder to follow the path and I was beginning to think I would never get out of this jungle when I emerged at last into a grassy but where the trail led upwards again. Then I spied a building on another path to the left.
The building turned out to be merely a hit, neatly boarded up and of no earthly interest, but beyond that was the entrance to a graveyard. It was a very wee graveyard and very old. The gravestones were dirty dark grey and standing at all angles. A perfect background for Dracula. I studied one big stone closely and could make out a fancy design with words written underneath, ‘Here Lies the Corpse of Jessie Buchanan’. On another there was a cheerful verse which I managed to decipher after peering at it for five minutes:Here Lies Tom,
His Life Was Squandered,
His Days Are Done,
But Yours are Numbered.
In the middle of all this creepiness was a wooden seat twisted and gnarled as a corpse itself. I could picture Tim of an evening coming out of his grave and sitting there peacefully with arms folded and legs crossed. So I sat down too.
Then from the wood there was a crack as if someone or something had stood on a branch while he or it was watching me. I could bear it no longer. I wrenched myself off the seat and ran past the hut down the path then up over the top of the island like a mountain goat. I didn’t stop until I reached the jetty, just in time to be caught by the mailboat returning.
and, as he ponders a break-in to a wealthy house in the neighbourhood with a drunken friend..
…’Anyway’, I said as if the subject hadn’t been dropped, ‘these folks might be mates o’mine.’
He said coldly, ‘Its no’ likely. The daughter is a Sunday school teacher and her faither is Kilty Cauld Bum McFadjan, the Scottish Nationalist. I don’t know aboot the mother, but she must be another bampot. They say she leaves the door open a’ the time tae let the cat in and oot’.
I was surprised. ‘Surely no’ Cauld Bum! He’s not worth much.’
‘Don’t you believe it. He goes aboot fixing bagpipes. His hoose is stacked oot wit’ them. These bagpipes are worth a fortune. Tinker Geordie that plays outside the Clansman wid gie us at least a fiver for a decent set.’
This was different. Kitty Cauld Bum was a joke with most people. Especially us of the socialist class. He cycled about, delivering his pamphlets with his kilt flying in the wind like a bad imitation of Rob Roy. I never had much regard for the highland gentry, but he wasn’t even a real one.
June 8, 2012
Read this as part of her Collected Stories. Wonderful funny writing. Poor working class young man, a brickie, finding it tough to find work in mid 80s Scotland. He and his mates have few skills and even less ambition. They like their drink, but that's just an integral and unavoidable part of life. He still lives at home with his Ma. They're tough people that don't want to reveal any vulnerable softness, but it leaks out. The brief scenes with his mother, usually either leaving the house or coming home, are little pregnant gems of hilarious family ties. He and his mates are often desperate for money or booze, and some of the very black scenes made me laugh out loud. Terrific.
February 2, 2011
seems i read tis already in her "Complete short stories" but in that i think they left out the chapter headings:
McDoanld's Dug
McDonald's Mass
Grievous Bodily Harm
Tolworth McGee
The Auld Wife's Fancy Man
Up Country
The Group
Paid Aff
McCluskie's Oot
Christmas Day in the Paxton
The Aftermath
The Ghost Seeker
Goodbye Everybody
if you can only read some agnew owens, read "gentlemen of the west"
McDoanld's Dug
McDonald's Mass
Grievous Bodily Harm
Tolworth McGee
The Auld Wife's Fancy Man
Up Country
The Group
Paid Aff
McCluskie's Oot
Christmas Day in the Paxton
The Aftermath
The Ghost Seeker
Goodbye Everybody
if you can only read some agnew owens, read "gentlemen of the west"
December 27, 2023
These connected stories were published as a novel, but are best read as individual stories. This Scottish author is new to me. She writes very humorously about very unfunny situations.
December 27, 2020
This book of short stories is so funny, all linked by Mac, an unemployed young brickie, still living with his mother. Mac has been out of work for months.He spends his days trying to find money to buy drink, and to spend time at the Paxton Arms with his buddies, men also out of work. Most of the drinking is done here but also in derelict buildings from wine bottles passed around. You can feel the camaraderie and humour throughout these stories, the banter is great and although no-one has much, there is a sense of community and sharing. Mac is looking for work though and there is a gradual realisation that he is not happy with his lot.
January 23, 2024
a book about poor unemployed drunkards that manages to be incredibly funny yet not condescending or nasty. minor misunderstandings lead to swings in opinion of friends, episodes include meeting friends from the past, foreigners, strange dogs, failed robberies, beatings and false deaths. much of this book is about friendships
the postscript by Alasdair Gray makes more sense than I can cobble together and also has an interesting history of working class writing in Britain. I had read that Agnes Owens was an underrated writer and can confirm that her writing is all it's cracked up to be.
the postscript by Alasdair Gray makes more sense than I can cobble together and also has an interesting history of working class writing in Britain. I had read that Agnes Owens was an underrated writer and can confirm that her writing is all it's cracked up to be.
July 6, 2026
You just know a book is amazing when Alasdair Gray loves it. Honestly I'm still baffled by how good it was. Owens writes the protagonist Mac, a young bricklayer, in such a natural male voice that I genuinely could not believe a woman had written it. There's nothing romantic or love-related in this book at all, and yet I was completely hooked the whole way through, which says a lot about how well she can just capture a life without needing a plot device to carry it.
The Scottish accent/dialect was hard to get into at first, I'll be honest, but I really came to enjoy it once it clicked. What got me most was how mundane and everyday it all was — the bar, everyone hanging around it, Paddy McDonald's dog, all these different characters just existing in this world — it reminded me a lot of Bukowski's “Hollywood” and that whole genre of a man just struggling through ordinary life, except Owens makes it so interesting to sit inside.
The mother was one peculiar yet ordinary character. She's old and cranky, and she clearly has affection for her son in her own way, but not enough that she actually understands what he's going through emotionally — he doesn't even fully understand it himself. He just has to sit with it and work through it on his own, which I found really moving without the book ever making a big deal out of it. My favorite part was when he just takes a boat out to one of the islands to be alone in nature for a while and recuperate before coming back.
I keep coming back to how baffled I am that this is the same Agnes Owens who wrote “A Working Mother”, with a protagonist like Betty who is so compelling in a completely different, female-centered way. Owens is just really something.
The Scottish accent/dialect was hard to get into at first, I'll be honest, but I really came to enjoy it once it clicked. What got me most was how mundane and everyday it all was — the bar, everyone hanging around it, Paddy McDonald's dog, all these different characters just existing in this world — it reminded me a lot of Bukowski's “Hollywood” and that whole genre of a man just struggling through ordinary life, except Owens makes it so interesting to sit inside.
The mother was one peculiar yet ordinary character. She's old and cranky, and she clearly has affection for her son in her own way, but not enough that she actually understands what he's going through emotionally — he doesn't even fully understand it himself. He just has to sit with it and work through it on his own, which I found really moving without the book ever making a big deal out of it. My favorite part was when he just takes a boat out to one of the islands to be alone in nature for a while and recuperate before coming back.
I keep coming back to how baffled I am that this is the same Agnes Owens who wrote “A Working Mother”, with a protagonist like Betty who is so compelling in a completely different, female-centered way. Owens is just really something.
May 10, 2026
This was Agnes Owen's debut novel first published in 1984 when the author was 58. Although she wrote seven novels she soon fell out of favour and her books were no longer printed. To celebrate the centenary of her birth a number of her books have been republished
This novel is set a in an era of poverty and concentrates on the life of Mac a young bricklayer whose life is living on poor wagesand meeting with friends in the pub and its variety of characters. Although comical in parts it provides an insight into working class life.
A moving picture of a hard way of life and a man's understanding of his life - poignant, skillful and inventive writing
This novel is set a in an era of poverty and concentrates on the life of Mac a young bricklayer whose life is living on poor wagesand meeting with friends in the pub and its variety of characters. Although comical in parts it provides an insight into working class life.
A moving picture of a hard way of life and a man's understanding of his life - poignant, skillful and inventive writing
May 15, 2026
I absolutely adore this book about the trials and tribulations of Mac, a young bricklayer, who seems tired living within a solemn and scarce bubble of poverty, where only alcohol provides an escape, and where there is scant prospect for anything better on his horizon.
Agnes Owens was a gem of a writer who tells these individual vignettes of Mac's existence with a truthfulness, both harsh and humourous, which encapsulates fully the plight of the working class in Glasgow. Added to which there is a glowing, typically poetic Postscript from Alasdair Gray.
Bravo Polygon for keeping Owens' works in print and I look forward to reading the remaining titles in this series.
Agnes Owens was a gem of a writer who tells these individual vignettes of Mac's existence with a truthfulness, both harsh and humourous, which encapsulates fully the plight of the working class in Glasgow. Added to which there is a glowing, typically poetic Postscript from Alasdair Gray.
Bravo Polygon for keeping Owens' works in print and I look forward to reading the remaining titles in this series.
December 25, 2017
A brilliant collection of episodic chapter/stories, set in Scotland, in the milieu of the down and out.
July 5, 2023
A story no one else would have paid attention to, of people that don’t get noticed, but of a simple reality worth writing about.
May 18, 2026
3.5 - funny and melancholic, nice to discover a new writer
August 4, 2026
I read Owens’ novella “A Working Mother” about a month ago and liked it a lot so I ordered two more books of hers that have been re-issued in 2026. And this was an enjoyable read. I would normally give it 4 stars, but I want to encourage people to give this author (now deceased) a chance. Why her books went out of print is beyond me, but I hope her books will be now be newly appreciated because Polygon has re-issued her oeuvre. And good for them!
This novella (140 pages) is constructed by chapters that are essentially short stories (each chapter can be a standalone read)….and all interconnected. I love this style in general and loved the style for this book in particular. And her writing was spot-on…terse and evocative and not flowery. Just my cup of tea.
The central protagonist is Mac, a bricklayer who periodically works and is then laid off. He has his drinking “buddies” and I use that term a bit loosely. Overdrinking and alcoholism runs rampant in the stories. There is humor in her writing and sadness too. I will say that the last story has a hopeful ending.
The book has an Introduction written by Dani Garavelli and an Afterword (postscript) by Alasdair Gray. This was her debut novel.
Reviews:
• https://www.thetimes.com/culture/book... (I agree with this reviewer when they say: “…she did write a love story with a touch of bitterness to it, in her 1996 novel A Working Mother, which is a favourite of Douglas Stuart’s. Start here, or there, or anywhere: the main thing is to start reading Owens — you won’t want to stop.”
• Short article on Owens in which this novella is briefly described… https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
• another article about Owens in general… https://overland.org.au/2014/10/vale-... and again I agree with this reviewer when they say “Owens produced a terrific body of work. You should read her, because her stories are well worth spending time with. Like Liz Lochead said, she’ll crack you up.”
This novella (140 pages) is constructed by chapters that are essentially short stories (each chapter can be a standalone read)….and all interconnected. I love this style in general and loved the style for this book in particular. And her writing was spot-on…terse and evocative and not flowery. Just my cup of tea.
The central protagonist is Mac, a bricklayer who periodically works and is then laid off. He has his drinking “buddies” and I use that term a bit loosely. Overdrinking and alcoholism runs rampant in the stories. There is humor in her writing and sadness too. I will say that the last story has a hopeful ending.
The book has an Introduction written by Dani Garavelli and an Afterword (postscript) by Alasdair Gray. This was her debut novel.
Reviews:
• https://www.thetimes.com/culture/book... (I agree with this reviewer when they say: “…she did write a love story with a touch of bitterness to it, in her 1996 novel A Working Mother, which is a favourite of Douglas Stuart’s. Start here, or there, or anywhere: the main thing is to start reading Owens — you won’t want to stop.”
• Short article on Owens in which this novella is briefly described… https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
• another article about Owens in general… https://overland.org.au/2014/10/vale-... and again I agree with this reviewer when they say “Owens produced a terrific body of work. You should read her, because her stories are well worth spending time with. Like Liz Lochead said, she’ll crack you up.”
Review of advance copy
Agnes Owens... what an unexpected pleasure to come across this brilliant working class writer. Life on the margins in the construction industry. Hand to mouth stories centred around home, work, hobble, and the pub. Real life characters. Sad, funny, and sometimes broken. I met some of them. They had different names and lived in other places. But they existed. Owens has captured the essence of these folks and their environment. The banter and the gloom. It's all here. In this narrative, wrapped around the lives of a mother and her bricklayer son.
Review of advance copy
Lovely new centenary edition of Agnes Owens novel, with an insightful introduction by journalist Dani Garavelli. An episodic tale, on the style of Steinbeck's Cannery Row, about a bricklayer called Mac. In and out of work, and in and out of the pub in the West of Scotland. Captures the language and mindset of the characters perfectly.
October 25, 2024
Stoidhle sìmplidh, tarraingeach, taitneach. Chur e tortilla flat nam chuimhne, daoine aig nach eil mòran, aig nach eil mòran dòchais. Is an dèidh sin, làn tùirs, fàth gàire, is dealbh fìor de bheatha.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews