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The Voids
‘After a couple of weeks, I found myself standing outside the voids in the middle of the night listening for human activity, for any sign of life at all. Voids are flats that have been vacated, that will never be lived in again. But there never were any signs of life. Only the wind whistling through vacant interiors.’
In a condemned tower block in Glasgow, residents slowly trickle away until a young man is left alone with only the angels and devils in his mind for company. Stumbling from one surreal situation to the next, he encounters others on the margins of society, finding friendship and camaraderie wherever it is offered, grappling with who he is and what shape his future might take.
The Voids is an unsparing story of modern-day Britain, told with brilliant flashes of humour and humanity.
In a condemned tower block in Glasgow, residents slowly trickle away until a young man is left alone with only the angels and devils in his mind for company. Stumbling from one surreal situation to the next, he encounters others on the margins of society, finding friendship and camaraderie wherever it is offered, grappling with who he is and what shape his future might take.
The Voids is an unsparing story of modern-day Britain, told with brilliant flashes of humour and humanity.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published March 10, 2022
21 people are currently reading
675 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
March 3, 2022
Ryan O'Connor's superb debut treads some familiar territory within Scottish fiction, such as that found in Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting and Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain, it is lyrical and poetic, humorous and heartbreaking, unnerving and disorientating. A condemned Glaswegian high rise, a land grab by the council and developers, slowly empties of its residents, including the Birdman who shared his flat with pigeons and numerous immigrant families. The last man left is the occasionally named Jack McCann, a committed alcoholic, an ex-journalist from The Examiner, a free Glasgow weekly, becoming ever more lonely. He is breaking into the 'voids', the vacated derelict flats, that will never be lived in again, feeling the wind whistling through them at night, each void with its own musical composition, rearranging in the building the possessions left behind as a tribute to the ghosts, to those who had once lived there.
In a narrative that goes back and forth in time, we are immersed in the vivid fragmentary memories, perhaps mirages, drink and drug fuelled hallucinations and epiphanies, vignettes of life and family, and relationships with women always destined to end as, with Lilian and Mia, with Jack convinced that happiness is never meant to be his lot in life. He believes in the possibility that he will be reconnected with his head and who he is through his consumption of drink, the darkness, emptiness, the void inside him, as he interacts with and is drawn to the many other human wrecks living in the margins of society, amidst whom he finds friendship and solace. As he stumbles through one surreal event after another in life, I cannot forget the chaos and mayhem that arises in a Chinese restaurant and his encounters with the Afghan, can he survive to shape a different future or will he slip through the cracks as so many do in our contemporary world?
The author provides a vibrant picture of Glasgow and those who occupy the spaces at the edges of local communities and the pressures they endure, the mental fragilities, giving us an insightful social and political commentary. This was an intoxicating reading experience, a work of art, riveting and mesmerising, philosophical and imaginative, interrupted states of consciousness, a world of brutality and violence, yet tempered by the kindness and kinship to be found amongst those with nothing. Simply brilliant, and highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
In a narrative that goes back and forth in time, we are immersed in the vivid fragmentary memories, perhaps mirages, drink and drug fuelled hallucinations and epiphanies, vignettes of life and family, and relationships with women always destined to end as, with Lilian and Mia, with Jack convinced that happiness is never meant to be his lot in life. He believes in the possibility that he will be reconnected with his head and who he is through his consumption of drink, the darkness, emptiness, the void inside him, as he interacts with and is drawn to the many other human wrecks living in the margins of society, amidst whom he finds friendship and solace. As he stumbles through one surreal event after another in life, I cannot forget the chaos and mayhem that arises in a Chinese restaurant and his encounters with the Afghan, can he survive to shape a different future or will he slip through the cracks as so many do in our contemporary world?
The author provides a vibrant picture of Glasgow and those who occupy the spaces at the edges of local communities and the pressures they endure, the mental fragilities, giving us an insightful social and political commentary. This was an intoxicating reading experience, a work of art, riveting and mesmerising, philosophical and imaginative, interrupted states of consciousness, a world of brutality and violence, yet tempered by the kindness and kinship to be found amongst those with nothing. Simply brilliant, and highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
September 20, 2022
A doctor would probably have said I was depressed, psychotic, suffering some sort of break down. A less considered view might have been that I was barking, bonkers, not the full shilling. I wouldn't be so clinical, nor so droll. My way of living may not have been normal, nor my experiences run-of the-mill. But then what is normal? Turn on your television, consider what you're doing, what you're seeing. Sit with your dinner on your lap watching bombs fall on people in a city somewhere, then switch channels and watch a couple buy a house in Cambridge. I know I'm not saying anything new here. There are countless, equally prosaic examples we could all give. Which is the point. Normal is what we're conditioned to accept, and we accept it so readily. But there's nothing normal about any of it. As for the visions, I'd seen far rougher beasts when I was a child. Bodachs, apparitions, ghosts – whatever you want to call them. Full-blown hallucinations as alive as you or me. These current manifestations weren't nearly as intense. And whatever demons I was being pursued by - and God knows there were many - I now realised that during all those lost days and nights, I hadn't been trying to hide from them. I'd been trying to find them. I wanted passage back to that land, back to myself. Preferably without winding up in prison, a psychiatric ward, or turning up dead in a car somewhere. A reckoning was at hand. I could feel it in my mad bones.
This debut and highly autobiographical novel is set in a condemned high-rise in Glasgow, marked for redevelopment and now only inhabitated by a series of hold outs (mainly pensioners unwilling to accept relocation payments and start a new life elsewhere, an eccentric pigeon fancier, assorted visiting heroin addicts and the unnamed young male narrator.
It is told in a rather fragmentary and episodic first person by an unnamed narrator – although the fragmentary nature of the writing is less to do with literary experimentation than to the narrator’s often hazy grasp on precisely what occurred over periods of time, and the episodes are less narrative ones than episodes of drinking and/or drug taking.
These are a mix of hedonism and squalor – and reading them can be often feel like passages of rather extraneous and unappealing detail but seasoned with humour and some lovely descriptive passages and metaphors/similes as well as some memorable bizarre scenes (albeit memorable is probably not the correct expression as the narrator’s grasp of what eventually happened is often hazy).
At the heart of the book is the narrator’s attempt to fill the void and absence in his life – the void for him from the loss of his high-rise home and the void in the community which had built there over decades prior to its demolition (which is part of a wider gentrification and loss of traditional identity), and the void from his childhood (a cabaret singer father who suddenly largely absented himself, and a mother who later just disappeared).
One way in which he tries to fill the void is in the high-rise where he roams the deserted floors and flats (the literal meaning of the title) and scavenges the left-behind possessions he finds turning his own apartment into a temple of detritus. Another is in human relationships – be it in dead end pubs, fellow addicts, party circles, on-off relationships or just befriending strangers, he is always looking for community. And the final one is in alcohol and drugs – for the narrator these are not an obliteration of the world but more of a pathway to a different world, one where he feels he will meet the angels and demons from his past that mark his life and find a pathway forwards.
Overall this is a distinctive but difficult book.
One which has memorable imagery combined with mind-numbing interludes.
One written from a place of authorial experience but which may test many readers’ empathy.
August 17, 2023
I was expecting this book to be about the few remaining residents hanging on in a high rise apartment building that is slated for demolition. You know - the usual story of class differences, greed and gentrification. Instead, it is mostly about the sad life of the unnamed protagonist as he goes from one horrible event to another. Most of his misery is self inflicted since he is almost always under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He is barely conscious. He had a sad childhood, he is a sad adult and everyone he meets is sad. There is no happiness in Glasgow. The writing was quite good and Robin Laing’s narration of the audiobook was excellent. I could actually understand his accent. However, by the end of this book I felt bludgeoned by all this misery.
July 25, 2023
i'm a sucker for a depressed scottish novel i can't help it
▪️the characterisation in this was second to none, i genuinely felt so connected to the character and felt he was such a multifaceted person and was never bored by what he had to say
▪️also like i said i just love the dreary realism of scottish life depicted in literature and especially when they reference glasgow, it's just so exciting recognising places when you're reading
▪️only thing that lost a star for me was at points when he was so fucked he was hallucinating and coming in and out of consciousness i found it slightly hard to follow
overall another banger woo
▪️the characterisation in this was second to none, i genuinely felt so connected to the character and felt he was such a multifaceted person and was never bored by what he had to say
▪️also like i said i just love the dreary realism of scottish life depicted in literature and especially when they reference glasgow, it's just so exciting recognising places when you're reading
▪️only thing that lost a star for me was at points when he was so fucked he was hallucinating and coming in and out of consciousness i found it slightly hard to follow
overall another banger woo
April 24, 2025
Strange book, but I got completely sucked in. It felt like being caught in a never ending dream drifting in and out of pubs and flats around Glasgow, meeting all sorts of odd characters along the way.
Would defo recommend.
Would defo recommend.
March 19, 2025
“In the end, as in the beginning, I felt both at once - and it was filled with wonder.”
The Voids by Ryan O'Conner is a compelling journey through the mind of a simple yet highly relatable character, who clings to his reality amid complex and at times hard-to-follow situations. O'Conner masterfully keeps the story tense with unexpected twists, forcing the reader to pay close attention throughout.
The book centers around a protagonist trying to navigate a confusing world. While the character is, in many ways, straightforward and relatable, the situations he finds himself in are far from simple. This contrast between the ordinary and the complex creates an intriguing tension, making you feel like you're stepping into the protagonist's shoes.
What makes this book truly special is how O'Conner challenges the reader to fully immerse themselves in the story. The plot is not always easy to follow, but that’s precisely what makes it so engaging. The unpredictable turns keep you on your toes, and it takes real focus to understand the depth of the narrative.
Although the storyline can be confusing at times, the emotional impact remains strong. This is a book that asks the reader for patience and attention, but ultimately delivers a rich, layered experience that lingers long after you've finished reading.
For those who enjoy stories that offer both an accessible entry point and deeper complexity, The Voids is definitely worth a read. The unexpected plot twists, combined with the relatable yet human protagonist, make this a story you won't soon forget.
The Voids by Ryan O'Conner is a compelling journey through the mind of a simple yet highly relatable character, who clings to his reality amid complex and at times hard-to-follow situations. O'Conner masterfully keeps the story tense with unexpected twists, forcing the reader to pay close attention throughout.
The book centers around a protagonist trying to navigate a confusing world. While the character is, in many ways, straightforward and relatable, the situations he finds himself in are far from simple. This contrast between the ordinary and the complex creates an intriguing tension, making you feel like you're stepping into the protagonist's shoes.
What makes this book truly special is how O'Conner challenges the reader to fully immerse themselves in the story. The plot is not always easy to follow, but that’s precisely what makes it so engaging. The unpredictable turns keep you on your toes, and it takes real focus to understand the depth of the narrative.
Although the storyline can be confusing at times, the emotional impact remains strong. This is a book that asks the reader for patience and attention, but ultimately delivers a rich, layered experience that lingers long after you've finished reading.
For those who enjoy stories that offer both an accessible entry point and deeper complexity, The Voids is definitely worth a read. The unexpected plot twists, combined with the relatable yet human protagonist, make this a story you won't soon forget.
July 20, 2025
“Life hurt in a way that made me glad to be alive again - and ashamed to have wished so much of it away.”
- Ryan O’Connor
•
•
•
The Voids is a hauntingly beautiful, semi-autobiographical account of the isolated life of an addict. Framing the narrative is the hollow touchstone of a condemned high-rise building in Glasgow. The skeletal layers of families that were once present, but have since moved on, as the narrator waits alone within the walls, sifting through the discarded details of their lives.
The plot follows the narrator as he weaves together his memories of the paths that led him to where he stands now, disoriented and drifting towards an indeterminate future. The imagery used is illustrative of the tragic shadows of life which rest in the corners of every town, every city, and every soul. Highlighting that, so often, people merely see the darkness within others without adjusting their vision to find the light.
The narrator’s life is told as one lived on the fringes, but within touching distance, of humanity. Somewhere between hell and earth, he has been forced to dwell since childhood, with the devil at his door. The tether which binds him to the high-rise, to his past, and to his addiction is severed and we leave him as he finds his feet, and his wings, to step out from The Voids.
- Ryan O’Connor
•
•
•
The Voids is a hauntingly beautiful, semi-autobiographical account of the isolated life of an addict. Framing the narrative is the hollow touchstone of a condemned high-rise building in Glasgow. The skeletal layers of families that were once present, but have since moved on, as the narrator waits alone within the walls, sifting through the discarded details of their lives.
The plot follows the narrator as he weaves together his memories of the paths that led him to where he stands now, disoriented and drifting towards an indeterminate future. The imagery used is illustrative of the tragic shadows of life which rest in the corners of every town, every city, and every soul. Highlighting that, so often, people merely see the darkness within others without adjusting their vision to find the light.
The narrator’s life is told as one lived on the fringes, but within touching distance, of humanity. Somewhere between hell and earth, he has been forced to dwell since childhood, with the devil at his door. The tether which binds him to the high-rise, to his past, and to his addiction is severed and we leave him as he finds his feet, and his wings, to step out from The Voids.
Read
September 14, 2021Reading The Voids is a sensory experience. There is never a word too much, it never lingers. There is tragedy but no melodrama. O’Connor’s lightness of touch, the pace, economy, characters … are all perfect, all harmonious, poetic, but unadorned, even in the blackest of moments. Part of me is still in that high rise or watching the sunlight through the fire exit door at The Satellite. It is beautiful and perfect. I want to say this is a book God would like.
Paul Buchanan, The Blue Nile
The Voids is a wild, magical, and magnetically mad picaresque … it had me bellowing with laughter on one page and needing to weep on the next. I tore through it, and it through me. A brilliant debut.
Niall Griffiths, Author of Sheepshagger and Broken Ghost
It is rare to discover a book that is simultaneously beautiful and devastating, where characters are frightening to behold but also worthy of compassion.
Simon Van Booy, author of Night Came with Many Stars
Paul Buchanan, The Blue Nile
The Voids is a wild, magical, and magnetically mad picaresque … it had me bellowing with laughter on one page and needing to weep on the next. I tore through it, and it through me. A brilliant debut.
Niall Griffiths, Author of Sheepshagger and Broken Ghost
It is rare to discover a book that is simultaneously beautiful and devastating, where characters are frightening to behold but also worthy of compassion.
Simon Van Booy, author of Night Came with Many Stars
March 4, 2022
The Voids starts in the grim tower block that gives this books its name- condemned housing where all hope appears lost.
The book soon moves us through the whirlwind life of somebody whose sense of reality and security is rapidly falling away from him. Drugs, family breakdown and trauma all circle around our narrator's life and threaten to pull him under.
Although this subject matter appears to be well-trodden ground, with echoes of novels like Trainspotting, this book is made exceptional by its quality of writing, and the tenderness that beats just beneath the surface, even in its darkest set-pieces.
As the book comes to its close, the language of this deceptively short book just soars- the final ten pages of this book left me almost euphoric, and rank among some of the tightest and smartest endings that I've read in a very long time, where its generous prose just sings and demands to be soaked in.
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and Scribe UK in exchange for an honest review.
The book soon moves us through the whirlwind life of somebody whose sense of reality and security is rapidly falling away from him. Drugs, family breakdown and trauma all circle around our narrator's life and threaten to pull him under.
Although this subject matter appears to be well-trodden ground, with echoes of novels like Trainspotting, this book is made exceptional by its quality of writing, and the tenderness that beats just beneath the surface, even in its darkest set-pieces.
As the book comes to its close, the language of this deceptively short book just soars- the final ten pages of this book left me almost euphoric, and rank among some of the tightest and smartest endings that I've read in a very long time, where its generous prose just sings and demands to be soaked in.
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and Scribe UK in exchange for an honest review.
October 4, 2022
A startling debut novel by a hugely talented new voice. O'Connor blends deep sadness and destitution with manic dark comedy and lucid spirituality to produce an excellent novel that is never what you think it's going to be.
What starts out as a story about a mostly abandoned tower block primed for demolition soon morphs into a raw character study of a man whose life is in a desperate state and who seems to have an uncanny knack for digging lower to find a new rock bottom. Our narrator is floundering in a pit of drugs, drink and despair, lurching from one doomed sexual encounter to the next, from one hallucinatory interaction to another. Never really grasping for anything better, only pushing further down the pain of the past.
If this all sounds super bleak, well, it pretty much is. But the narrative is punctuated with crazy, hilarious set pieces, which lighten the story... to a point.
The writing is class throughout and, though it sometimes drifts off into its own world a little bit much for me, it is still a really high quality novel and I look forward to seeing what O'Connor writes next.
What starts out as a story about a mostly abandoned tower block primed for demolition soon morphs into a raw character study of a man whose life is in a desperate state and who seems to have an uncanny knack for digging lower to find a new rock bottom. Our narrator is floundering in a pit of drugs, drink and despair, lurching from one doomed sexual encounter to the next, from one hallucinatory interaction to another. Never really grasping for anything better, only pushing further down the pain of the past.
If this all sounds super bleak, well, it pretty much is. But the narrative is punctuated with crazy, hilarious set pieces, which lighten the story... to a point.
The writing is class throughout and, though it sometimes drifts off into its own world a little bit much for me, it is still a really high quality novel and I look forward to seeing what O'Connor writes next.
August 2, 2022
Welcome to The Voids, an abandoned Glasgow high-rise where our unnamed narrator resides on the 14th floor. Embarking on an existential odyssey that involves his drinking and drugging his way among that city's wide variety of fellow miscreants, this ain't a novel to win any prizes from the Glasgow Tourist Board but one that will provide a rich vein of fun and dark humour.
April 24, 2023
this was depressing
December 3, 2024
'Even loneliness loses its shine when you realise you are not in fact the loneliest person in the world, only one of many.'
January 2, 2024
enjoyed this book a lot, would have raced through it quicker if I hadn’t lost it for a week. deals with drug and alcohol abuse, very miserable in parts but the writing style is beautiful and rich with imagery. only criticism might be that the general portrayal of the working class (the only subjects of the book) is that of a futile struggle against vices.
July 17, 2022
Apartment towers.
Huge from the outside, yet small from the inside. Potentially desolate, yet also potentially intimate settings for a deep dive into humanity's more intriguing aspects.
Heaps of potential.
On the wrapper it said that this novel was about a man who lived in an increasingly abandoned multistorey apartment tower. That he broke into the abandoned apartments and pieced together a new life from the shadows and debris of the lives of the departed.
Intriguing.
But that's not what it's about.
It's about a late-middle-aged man who is an expert at being both (a) an alcoholic and (2) a failure in meeting even the most basic of life's demands. He forms shallow and meaningless relationships with women and sometimes men, and then he messes up those relationships, usually through his alcoholism, but sometimes just by being a dick. Then he gets beaten up. Then he starts the process over again.
Not really intriguing. A bit sad, actually. Predictable even.
There is an apartment block, sure, and it is increasingly abandoned, and he does hoard things that he steals from people's abandoned apartments... but it just wasn't as jolly and uplifting as I expected it to be.
Or as intriguing.
Matter of fact, he spends a bunch of time not so much in the apartment block as totally away from it, hanging out in a rundown pub, or else hanging out with his latest soon-to-be-ruined-relationship. Sometimes he's hanging out in a rundown pub *with* his latest soon-to-be-ruined-relationship.
Those times when he's doing the two things he does both at the same time are definitely high points in the narrative.
No pun intended,
At times it's trying to be a comedy, it would seem. Premise: Drunk people do hilarious things! Except that alcoholic people are not the same as drunk people. It's a big challenge to write a funny alcoholic. A minefield, even. It can be done, but it's a big challenge.
I'm suggesting that here the challenge has not been met.
He also spends a lot of time missing funerals because of (a) his being drunk due to his alcoholism and (2) his being a failure at meeting even the most basic demands of life, and THUS he can't quite manage to get his act together long enough to turn up at the appointed place and time to be present for the departure of a loved one into the black and loamy soil.
Again, challenging territory for a comedic interlude. But, to be fair, those passages aren't apparently meant to be funny.
Not sure what they're meant to be.
Pathetic?
Then, late in the novel, it gets a bit maudlin and he spends some time with a constellation of no-hopers in an end-of-the-line flophouse. This seems to be drawn from life, so... So there you go. Fancy that. There are no-hopers in the world, and this is what it's like hanging out with them. Enjoy.
I was hoping that this would be the Great Abandoned Apartment Block Novel, but that was not to be.
I will keep looking. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.
Huge from the outside, yet small from the inside. Potentially desolate, yet also potentially intimate settings for a deep dive into humanity's more intriguing aspects.
Heaps of potential.
On the wrapper it said that this novel was about a man who lived in an increasingly abandoned multistorey apartment tower. That he broke into the abandoned apartments and pieced together a new life from the shadows and debris of the lives of the departed.
Intriguing.
But that's not what it's about.
It's about a late-middle-aged man who is an expert at being both (a) an alcoholic and (2) a failure in meeting even the most basic of life's demands. He forms shallow and meaningless relationships with women and sometimes men, and then he messes up those relationships, usually through his alcoholism, but sometimes just by being a dick. Then he gets beaten up. Then he starts the process over again.
Not really intriguing. A bit sad, actually. Predictable even.
There is an apartment block, sure, and it is increasingly abandoned, and he does hoard things that he steals from people's abandoned apartments... but it just wasn't as jolly and uplifting as I expected it to be.
Or as intriguing.
Matter of fact, he spends a bunch of time not so much in the apartment block as totally away from it, hanging out in a rundown pub, or else hanging out with his latest soon-to-be-ruined-relationship. Sometimes he's hanging out in a rundown pub *with* his latest soon-to-be-ruined-relationship.
Those times when he's doing the two things he does both at the same time are definitely high points in the narrative.
No pun intended,
At times it's trying to be a comedy, it would seem. Premise: Drunk people do hilarious things! Except that alcoholic people are not the same as drunk people. It's a big challenge to write a funny alcoholic. A minefield, even. It can be done, but it's a big challenge.
I'm suggesting that here the challenge has not been met.
He also spends a lot of time missing funerals because of (a) his being drunk due to his alcoholism and (2) his being a failure at meeting even the most basic demands of life, and THUS he can't quite manage to get his act together long enough to turn up at the appointed place and time to be present for the departure of a loved one into the black and loamy soil.
Again, challenging territory for a comedic interlude. But, to be fair, those passages aren't apparently meant to be funny.
Not sure what they're meant to be.
Pathetic?
Then, late in the novel, it gets a bit maudlin and he spends some time with a constellation of no-hopers in an end-of-the-line flophouse. This seems to be drawn from life, so... So there you go. Fancy that. There are no-hopers in the world, and this is what it's like hanging out with them. Enjoy.
I was hoping that this would be the Great Abandoned Apartment Block Novel, but that was not to be.
I will keep looking. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.
January 13, 2023
This book sucks you in with a morbid curiosity that makes you wonder what the narrator will do next. The familiar setting made it easy to visualise but the bleakness, at times, made me wonder if this was set in present day or a future iteration of the G postcodes.
Beyond the bleakness, there are various tone shifts throughout the story that change and develop as we better understand the narrator’s traversing of Glasgow in his ever-intoxicated state. At the start of the book I found a strange creepiness within the text, feeling like I was looking on to something I shouldn’t have walked in on, (a similar feeling to watching Jake Gyllenhall in Nightcrawler) but by the end I had developed a sympathy for the narrator in his profound resolve.
I went in thinking this was going to be a solely set within the condemned flats where the narrator is staying but his journeys take him across Glasgow and even out to Lanarkshire at one point. The fading in and out of consciousness was comparable to Ottessa Moshfegh’s MYORAR, but I enjoyed this more as the particular brand of dry, and often dark, humour resonated more closely with me. There were more events and characters for the narrator to bounce off of and they all helped to form a picture of the type of situations and social circles he has come to be involved with.
If I was a highlighter/tabber (and this wasn’t a library copy) I would have marked out a number of quotes from this book, as despite my recognition of its darkness there are so many poignant prosaic moments that made for strangely comforting reading.
Beyond the bleakness, there are various tone shifts throughout the story that change and develop as we better understand the narrator’s traversing of Glasgow in his ever-intoxicated state. At the start of the book I found a strange creepiness within the text, feeling like I was looking on to something I shouldn’t have walked in on, (a similar feeling to watching Jake Gyllenhall in Nightcrawler) but by the end I had developed a sympathy for the narrator in his profound resolve.
I went in thinking this was going to be a solely set within the condemned flats where the narrator is staying but his journeys take him across Glasgow and even out to Lanarkshire at one point. The fading in and out of consciousness was comparable to Ottessa Moshfegh’s MYORAR, but I enjoyed this more as the particular brand of dry, and often dark, humour resonated more closely with me. There were more events and characters for the narrator to bounce off of and they all helped to form a picture of the type of situations and social circles he has come to be involved with.
If I was a highlighter/tabber (and this wasn’t a library copy) I would have marked out a number of quotes from this book, as despite my recognition of its darkness there are so many poignant prosaic moments that made for strangely comforting reading.
Read
August 17, 2021Reading The Voids is a sensory experience. There is never a word too much, it never lingers. There is tragedy but no melodrama. O’Connor’s lightness of touch, the pace, economy, characters … are all perfect, all harmonious, poetic, but unadorned, even in the blackest of moments. Part of me is still in that high rise or watching the sunlight through the fire exit door at The Satellite. It is beautiful and perfect. I want to say this is a book God would like.
Paul Buchanan, The Blue Nile
The Voids is a wild, magical, and magnetically mad picaresque … it had me bellowing with laughter on one page and needing to weep on the next. I tore through it, and it through me. A brilliant debut.
Niall Griffiths, Author of Sheepshagger and Broken Ghost
Paul Buchanan, The Blue Nile
The Voids is a wild, magical, and magnetically mad picaresque … it had me bellowing with laughter on one page and needing to weep on the next. I tore through it, and it through me. A brilliant debut.
Niall Griffiths, Author of Sheepshagger and Broken Ghost
April 3, 2022
This is a beautifully written novel focussed on life in an abandoned high rise block. There are drugs, death and abuse, it’s not a pretty read, and the start felt relentlessly sad. However the hero is seeking some sort of redemption and reparation for events of the past and there is hope to be found, as well as some dark humour. Reminiscent of Irvine Walsh or perhaps Shuggie Bain, this is an evocative Glaswegian novel.
Read with The Pigeonhole.
Read with The Pigeonhole.
October 19, 2025
Ryan O’Connor’s The Voids is a stark and lyrical exploration of loneliness in the ruins of modern Britain. Through the eyes of a man left behind in an abandoned Glasgow tower block, O’Connor exposes the quiet despair of those society forgets while uncovering moments of grace that pulse through even the darkest corners.
The novel’s strength lies in its delicate balance between grit and compassion. The protagonist’s fragmented existence, marked by fleeting human contact and ghostly reflection, becomes a mirror for the reader forcing us to confront what it means to live without connection, yet still yearn for it.
With prose that shimmers between bleak realism and poetic introspection, The Voids stands as a powerful testament to resilience, empathy, and the haunting beauty found in the margins.
The novel’s strength lies in its delicate balance between grit and compassion. The protagonist’s fragmented existence, marked by fleeting human contact and ghostly reflection, becomes a mirror for the reader forcing us to confront what it means to live without connection, yet still yearn for it.
With prose that shimmers between bleak realism and poetic introspection, The Voids stands as a powerful testament to resilience, empathy, and the haunting beauty found in the margins.
February 25, 2025
I totally loved this book and finished it really fast!! I have to say it does start a little slow paced and you have to push through the very start to get to the good bits. The story around alcohol and drugs has so much mayhem and you can’t help but keep turning the pages. There’s characters you feel heartache for and others not so much. The way it’s written in particular captivated me, as you read some parts make no sense at all… as if your drunk yourself but that’s the clever way it puts the reader in the characters shoes. you’ll be reading one section and thinking ‘wtaf is going on’!! And that’s exactly how the characters are feeling through their intoxication.
It’s totally disoriented, saddening and ram packed with event after event. The story within this book doesn’t get happier by any page that’s for sure. But then again. Glasgow doesn’t exactly have the reputation fir being a happy place.
It’s totally disoriented, saddening and ram packed with event after event. The story within this book doesn’t get happier by any page that’s for sure. But then again. Glasgow doesn’t exactly have the reputation fir being a happy place.
July 23, 2022
This was grim
October 30, 2022
One of the best books I've read in a very long time. Irvine Welsh in a Ballard-soaked high-rise. Bleak, engaging, sad and sometimes beautifully comical.
July 31, 2022
Can remember this guy rocking up at my house slightly inebriated about a decade ago. Glad he's getting on alright.
May 20, 2022
Couldn’t recommend this enough. Incredible story of rock bottoms laced with dark comedy and beauty.
Absolute must read.
Absolute must read.
July 13, 2023
This book is about addiction, and the cycles of hopelessness and pain which it can create. It followed the journey of a man as his life increasingly unravelled, and he met an interesting cast of characters along the way in Glasgow.
I found the writing to be gripping and unique. The insanity of the main character, who remained unnamed, was palpable. The setting of a condemned tower block felt beautifully and painfully symbolic. At times it was difficult to read, but this was due to the subject matter, rather than the prose itself.
The characters bordered on absurd at times, but in a grippingly dark way. The main character made impossibly bad choices but I believed every one of them as being a product of his past and his addiction, which at time can drive people to do things which seem implausible. It explored the life of those at the margins of society, considering the spaces that they occupy, and how those spaces are destroyed.
The plot cut choppily between past and present in a way which was explanatory. The same mistakes were made over and over with no end in sight, and no real character development. In fact, the main character almost seemed to regress.
Overall I found this to be a very compelling read, with beautiful language and harrowing imagery. The world was amazingly built and destroyed.
Writing: 5/5
Character 5/5
Plot: 4/5
I found the writing to be gripping and unique. The insanity of the main character, who remained unnamed, was palpable. The setting of a condemned tower block felt beautifully and painfully symbolic. At times it was difficult to read, but this was due to the subject matter, rather than the prose itself.
The characters bordered on absurd at times, but in a grippingly dark way. The main character made impossibly bad choices but I believed every one of them as being a product of his past and his addiction, which at time can drive people to do things which seem implausible. It explored the life of those at the margins of society, considering the spaces that they occupy, and how those spaces are destroyed.
The plot cut choppily between past and present in a way which was explanatory. The same mistakes were made over and over with no end in sight, and no real character development. In fact, the main character almost seemed to regress.
Overall I found this to be a very compelling read, with beautiful language and harrowing imagery. The world was amazingly built and destroyed.
Writing: 5/5
Character 5/5
Plot: 4/5
June 25, 2023
Mr. O'Connor is a master of the metaphor.
December 9, 2021
A big thanks to the team at Scribe for sending me this ARC.
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The Voids is the debut novel from Ryan O'Connor, a Glaswegian writer, and it's a an absolute beauty. It'll be released in March 2022, and I'd very much encourage you to get a copy.
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We follow the journey of a man as he descends deeper into drink and drugs, whilst living out of a high rise flat (possibly the Red Road Flats?). It's a fiercely intimate story. I love the way Ryan writes, it's beautiful yet heartbreaking. He's writes so descriptively, from the environments our protagonist finds himself in to the spiralling thoughts as drink, drugs and fear take hold. I loved the musings on life too.
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This novel gave me nostalgia of drink fuelled nights in Glasgow when I was younger. Those odd nights when I found myself in slightly precarious situations, walking through the city in a drunken haze. The writing was so vivid.
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This was powerful, so well written and engrossing. It makes you question your place in this world and what it means to be alive, and it has absolutely shot straight into my top reads of this year. A fantastic debut novel, and I can't wait to hear Ryan talk about this next year in interviews and hopefully on a book tour.
.
The Voids is the debut novel from Ryan O'Connor, a Glaswegian writer, and it's a an absolute beauty. It'll be released in March 2022, and I'd very much encourage you to get a copy.
.
We follow the journey of a man as he descends deeper into drink and drugs, whilst living out of a high rise flat (possibly the Red Road Flats?). It's a fiercely intimate story. I love the way Ryan writes, it's beautiful yet heartbreaking. He's writes so descriptively, from the environments our protagonist finds himself in to the spiralling thoughts as drink, drugs and fear take hold. I loved the musings on life too.
.
This novel gave me nostalgia of drink fuelled nights in Glasgow when I was younger. Those odd nights when I found myself in slightly precarious situations, walking through the city in a drunken haze. The writing was so vivid.
.
This was powerful, so well written and engrossing. It makes you question your place in this world and what it means to be alive, and it has absolutely shot straight into my top reads of this year. A fantastic debut novel, and I can't wait to hear Ryan talk about this next year in interviews and hopefully on a book tour.
September 8, 2022
Ryan O'Connor entered the Scottish literary scene largely without fanfare, but I expect his will become a household name before too long. His debut novel, 'The Voids', was first published earlier this year and the momentum seems to be picking up now, following the release of paperback and audiobook versions.
In fact, this is a book which lends itself to ownership in multiple formats. I used the ebook to highlight passages I enjoyed but also listened to the audiobook, narrated by Robin Laing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Laing's delivery of O'Connor's words is something special to behold.
Our nameless protagonist is pathos personified as he takes us on his journey. The peripheral characters in 'The Voids' could have entire books written about each of them. Personally, I think we need more Mondo! Themes in the book are universal, but the dark humour, coupled with an innate humanity and generosity of spirit, feels specifically, recognisably, Glaswegian.
'The Voids' is a masterclass in what good writing looks like. What if feels like. O'Connor's choice of words, and turns of phrase, are exquisite. He has a dazzling future ahead of him and I am 100% here for it.
In fact, this is a book which lends itself to ownership in multiple formats. I used the ebook to highlight passages I enjoyed but also listened to the audiobook, narrated by Robin Laing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Laing's delivery of O'Connor's words is something special to behold.
Our nameless protagonist is pathos personified as he takes us on his journey. The peripheral characters in 'The Voids' could have entire books written about each of them. Personally, I think we need more Mondo! Themes in the book are universal, but the dark humour, coupled with an innate humanity and generosity of spirit, feels specifically, recognisably, Glaswegian.
'The Voids' is a masterclass in what good writing looks like. What if feels like. O'Connor's choice of words, and turns of phrase, are exquisite. He has a dazzling future ahead of him and I am 100% here for it.
June 20, 2022
An absolutely outstanding debut. Ryan O’Connor writes so heartbreakingly, painfully, beautifully that I kept finding myself rereading sentences because they had such profound depth to them. So much of this book must have been so hard to write with its harsh reality - there certainly are echoes of Trainspotting - yet that little beacon of light still manages to shine through and gives hope that the kindness and compassion of others, even in the most awful circumstances, can still triumph over all that adversity at times. I often think that it’s the people with the least to give who give the most and the writing here shows that can be true. Absolutely superb; I don’t think I’ve ever read something written with such clarity of anguish yet self deprecating laugh out loud humour. I will be buying several copies of this book to gift and recommending it to all, I feel privileged to have shared part of the authors life story and humbled by the poignant beauty of the writing. I urge you all to read this.
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