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Bunker Man
Rob is a newly-married janitor on Scotland's north-east coast. A hooded figure who holes up in a concrete pillbox on the beach has been seen lurking near the school. Our man takes it upon himself to confront the pervert but his interest in the Bunker Man gradually tilts from apprehension into vigilantism, then obsessed depravity...
- GenresFictionLiterary Fiction
297 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
2 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
Duncan McLean
33 books13 followersDuncan McLean (b. 1964) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright, and editor. His debut, Bucket of Tongues won a Somerset Maugham Award in 1993.
McLean has lived in Orkney since 1992. While based in Edinburgh in the 1980s, he started writing songs, stand-up routines, and plays for the Merry Mac Fun Co, a street theatre and comedy act with agitprop tendencies. The Merry Macs won various awards, and were twice nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award.
In the 1990s, McLean was part of a loose grouping of writers centred on Edinburgh whose characters were mainly poor, working class and young, whose themes were drugs, drink, dance music, violence, and alienation, and who took their inspiration variously from the Glaswegian writers of the previous generation, notably James Kelman, and from overseas writers like Richard Brautigan and Knut Hamsun.
In December 1990, with the writer James Meek, McLean set up and ran the Clocktower Press, a small but influential publishing house, which helped bring a new generation of Scottish writers to wider attention. McLean, Meek and the artist Eddie Farrell invested £50 each to print the first booklet, Safe/Lurch, with both writers contributing a story and Farrell illustrating the cover. After the first three booklets, Meek moved to Kiev and McLean went on to publish seven more, including the first separately-published extracts of what would later become Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. The fifth of the Clocktower series, it was printed in April 1992 in an edition of 300 under the title Past Tense: four stories from a novel.
In 1992, McLean published his first book, a collection of short stories called Bucket of Tongues, and since then has published several more books, including the acclaimed coming-of-age novel Blackden and a collection of plays, entitled Plays:One. In 1995, he published the novel Bunker Man and in 1998 his travelogue Lone Star Swing was published, which saw McLean tracing the roots of country music precursor Bob Wills.
McLean has lived in Orkney since 1992. While based in Edinburgh in the 1980s, he started writing songs, stand-up routines, and plays for the Merry Mac Fun Co, a street theatre and comedy act with agitprop tendencies. The Merry Macs won various awards, and were twice nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award.
In the 1990s, McLean was part of a loose grouping of writers centred on Edinburgh whose characters were mainly poor, working class and young, whose themes were drugs, drink, dance music, violence, and alienation, and who took their inspiration variously from the Glaswegian writers of the previous generation, notably James Kelman, and from overseas writers like Richard Brautigan and Knut Hamsun.
In December 1990, with the writer James Meek, McLean set up and ran the Clocktower Press, a small but influential publishing house, which helped bring a new generation of Scottish writers to wider attention. McLean, Meek and the artist Eddie Farrell invested £50 each to print the first booklet, Safe/Lurch, with both writers contributing a story and Farrell illustrating the cover. After the first three booklets, Meek moved to Kiev and McLean went on to publish seven more, including the first separately-published extracts of what would later become Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. The fifth of the Clocktower series, it was printed in April 1992 in an edition of 300 under the title Past Tense: four stories from a novel.
In 1992, McLean published his first book, a collection of short stories called Bucket of Tongues, and since then has published several more books, including the acclaimed coming-of-age novel Blackden and a collection of plays, entitled Plays:One. In 1995, he published the novel Bunker Man and in 1998 his travelogue Lone Star Swing was published, which saw McLean tracing the roots of country music precursor Bob Wills.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 30, 2012
As I wrote elsewhere, I tend to group this book with Irvine Welsh's *Filth* and Iain Banks's *Complicity* for a certain similarity in (*not* particularly uplifting) tone and for the graphic descriptions of sex and violence. Whether the inclusion of that explicit content is literarily useful or merely prurient is a matter for the reader to decide. Of the three books, I couldn't help feeling that *Bunker Man* went to the greatest extremes in explicit content without making it clear to me how that content contributed to the story's impact apart from shock value. It *is* an interesting fictional study on one man's descent into madness in much the same vein as *Filth* (which I enjoyed reading more).
September 30, 2011
This novel is brilliant. A tale of madness that is absolutely authentic.
This is McLean's masterpiece. His earlier stories and plays and his first novel 'Blackden' never hinted at this. Nothing he has written since can touch it.
A lot of people will hate this book. A lot of people will read it and be disturbed. I'm certain that more men can relate to Rob Catto than will admit to that fact.
This is McLean's masterpiece. His earlier stories and plays and his first novel 'Blackden' never hinted at this. Nothing he has written since can touch it.
A lot of people will hate this book. A lot of people will read it and be disturbed. I'm certain that more men can relate to Rob Catto than will admit to that fact.
February 11, 2024
SPOILERS
This story of a man slowly reaching a level of psychosis and madness was interesting yet ruined by repetitive attempts at shock value through sexual assault and vulgar sexual speech that held no merit in the story. The repeated sexual encounters (which was nearly a third of the book) were not impactful to the story, and continued to be unsettling with incredible detail into the charterers sexual obsession and senseless misogyny assaulting a minor repeatedly.
This story of a man slowly reaching a level of psychosis and madness was interesting yet ruined by repetitive attempts at shock value through sexual assault and vulgar sexual speech that held no merit in the story. The repeated sexual encounters (which was nearly a third of the book) were not impactful to the story, and continued to be unsettling with incredible detail into the charterers sexual obsession and senseless misogyny assaulting a minor repeatedly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 28, 2023
This seems to often be compared to works by Welsh but this has none of the subtlety or intelligence of his work. By the end I found the depictions of sexual assault and violence pretty self-indulgent.
March 9, 2021
Scottish drama is strange in my experience...and hyper sexual.
Glad I read it, but not out looking for other books by this author.
D
Glad I read it, but not out looking for other books by this author.
D
December 11, 2021
Grim, gritty and graphic!
That’s exactly how I’d sum up this book. It gave me vibes of Trainspotting mixed with The Wasp Factory.
The book definitely lulls you into a false sense of security at the beginning when you first meet Rob. To be honest I quite liked him at the start, one of element in particular I enjoyed was the banter between him and the other janitors.
But as the story goes on you realise that this is really the story of one man’s rapid descent into madness! I’m not sure I’ve ever had such a big change in opinion on a character than I did with Rob. He truly becomes a deplorable person! But the author had me totally hooked and I had to know where this descent would lead to.
This is one of those books that will really divide people and I can understand why, it’s just full of awful things but, as I’ve already said, I was completely drawn into the story. Overall an interesting read, not sure I could recommend it to everyone though!
That’s exactly how I’d sum up this book. It gave me vibes of Trainspotting mixed with The Wasp Factory.
The book definitely lulls you into a false sense of security at the beginning when you first meet Rob. To be honest I quite liked him at the start, one of element in particular I enjoyed was the banter between him and the other janitors.
But as the story goes on you realise that this is really the story of one man’s rapid descent into madness! I’m not sure I’ve ever had such a big change in opinion on a character than I did with Rob. He truly becomes a deplorable person! But the author had me totally hooked and I had to know where this descent would lead to.
This is one of those books that will really divide people and I can understand why, it’s just full of awful things but, as I’ve already said, I was completely drawn into the story. Overall an interesting read, not sure I could recommend it to everyone though!
December 20, 2012
Well. Child molestation, rampant misogyny, rape...it wasn't even just disturbing, it was brutal with no literary merit to redeem it. I mean, okay, the writing in terms of portraying a person's descent into severe mental illness was interesting, I just don't know how you can put so much fucked up shit here and never really address any of it. I wasn't expecting a happy ending but not this senselessness either.
August 31, 2007
Terrible, terrible. At first I thought the book would be kind of a lark or a Magnus Mills style dark comedy. Nope. As the main character spirals out of control a school girl is violently raped, a homeless man is murdered, lives are shattered and absolutely no point is made.
January 5, 2008
I wanted to like this but didn't...at all. Pointlessly transgressive for its own sake.
May 16, 2009
An excellent, and often times disturbing, portrait of a man faced with a somber reality, and the imaginative, maddening realm of his own psyche.
October 3, 2009
This creepy and sometimes scary book is the story of a custodian's descent into madness. Disturbing, but worth reading.
June 15, 2011
this took me a week to read, i just updated yesterday. this is not the most disturbing book i have ever read, but its up there.
December 10, 2014
This really didn't live up to the hype or cover blurb. Sex and violence, but written supposedly as literature. It's a fine line. Luck to escape two stars.
January 6, 2014
A little bit of me died reading this. Morally corrupt and utterly brilliant.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews