Something Leather

by Alasdair Gray

The loves and lives of June, Senga and Donalda are told in this book which covers the period 1963 to 1990. Also featured are unhappy children, a liberal headmistress, a tobacconist's family, a commercial traveller, a lighthouse keeper and a pimp. From the author of Lanark.

Genres: Fiction, Scotland, Novels, Contemporary, British Literature, Sexuality

254 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Alasdair James Gray was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards.

He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As well as his book illustrations, he painted portraits and murals. His artwork has been widely exhibited and is in several important collections. Before Lanark, he had plays performed on radio and TV.

His writing style is postmodern and has been compared with those of Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. It often contains extensive footnotes explaining the works that influenced it. His books inspired many younger Scottish writers, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, A.L. Kennedy, Janice Galloway, Chris Kelso and Iain Banks. He was writer-in-residence at the University of Glasgow from 1977 to 1979, and professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities from 2001 to 2003.

Gray was a civic nationalist and a republican, and wrote supporting socialism and Scottish independence. He popularised the epigram "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" (taken from a poem by Canadian poet Dennis Leigh) which was engraved in the Canongate Wall of the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh when it opened in 2004. He lived almost all his life in Glasgow, married twice, and had one son. On his death The Guardian referred to him as "the father figure of the renaissance in Scottish literature and art".

Reviews

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

At some point in the eighties, Alasdair Gray had a chat with Kathy Acker, who asked him why he'd never written a story about a woman. Gray's response was that "he could not imagine how a woman felt when she was alone." He tries, though, with Something Leather, to imagine the lives of women and how they might intersect (socially, sexually, economically) over the span of several decades. There are moments that are right on, and others that...I guess I'll be charitable and say that they miss the mark by ever so few miles. Still, it's a funny book that's kind of tender and weird, and it's really not a bad read.

The epilogue and the postscript (uh, spoiler alert?) are the most characteristically Alasdair Gray parts--in the epilogue he basically twists the story into the quest for an independent Scotland, and in the postscript he asserts that the three chapters of kinky sex are second fiddle to the "ten chapters of ordinary social kinkiness." Leave it to Gray to close a book that begins with a leather skirt with the declaration that he "would prefer a Britain where affections are not shaped by the unequal amounts of money we own."

[Lara Messersmith-Glavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delicious. Dark. Revealing. Truthful. Lush. Haunting. Funny. Artful.

Alisdair Gray is a strange and wonderful writer. I'd like to have a glass of wine in his mind. I don't want him to speak - I just want to wander around in there, dragging my finger across objects and looking into his bookcases and closets. I'd like to try on his clothes.

This book was given to me by a dear friend who apparently knew me quite a bit better than was immediately apparent. It is a very intimate gift. This story has become a secret favorite, as if reading it brought me that much closer to myself. I can't say much of anything about it, except for the fact that I wish it had been written about me.

This book is not for everyone, I don't think. But then, maybe it is.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something Leather is an entertaining novel from the self-deprecating bruiser of old-school Scottish postmodernism. I found the various S&M tales herein diverting but the whole experience felt like a series of short stories (because they are) and didn’t quite gel into a cohesive piece on a par with his classics, Lanark & Poor Things (despite the exquisite final torture sequence). Marvellously designed, as usual, apart from this hideous Picador paperback cover. The hardcover has original artwork by Gray.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

I realise that I haven't read something by Gray in almost 20 years, so it was good to get refamiliarised with his distinctive style and approach, which is very similar to the likes of James Kelman and Tom Leonard.

The chapters where he resorts to phonetic descriptions when doing the upper class dialogue, was both amusing and absurd in its accuracy. This is very much a dark and unpredictable journey through the back roads and underbelly of some Glaswegian lives, it jumps around in time and place, which can be confusing, but overall this had some really strong chapters and compelling characters. It can be a bit muddled and inconsistent but still rewarding and enjoyable in many places.

[Megan Cunningham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of this have aged terribly, but generally good fun. Deffo enjoyed Gray's style. It's safe to say his characterisation of men is much better than his characterisation of women ha

[Geraud · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book. don't be fooled by its first chapter. it's all about humanity.
slices of life and how these lives came eventually to cross each other's path. it's about being in love, not loving the right person, being poor, being sad. It's about life.

[Tama · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am two chapters in. I am anticipating being lovingly engrossed in the book by the halfway point, as that’s how it was with ‘Kelvin Walker.’ I don’t know if this term applies but “cold opening” is likely how I’d describe the introduction of a character who may not be mentioned or reappear much later, you get through a whole chapter with them, and then our main character is not the main perspective, she’s a subject of interest and partial obsession for the other characters, while she lies high in a tree. [These are my assumptions based on only those two chapters, thinking June was the mother of Harry, making Harry the protagonist as familiarity with traditional structure hints at.] It’s a cold opening because it’s 43 pages where time jumps up to 6 years from where we started, and ends telling up this five year old will be thirty two on the next page. Cold opening because Alasdair is saying things as they are for this first sixth without telling us why we should care—the character’s actions, and the dialogue which explains as much as the description sections. But he’s Alasdair Gray and you stick with it if you have any sense. Not to say I don’t like it, but am yet to fall into it. I was also thinking that it was BDSM inclined (pretty sure I first saw the title for this on a Wikipedia list about BDSM represented in novels), but the character who orders the leather skirt doesn’t have any thought of pain for pleasure. I’m guessing the cover drawing is not the introductory character, but the 32 y/o Harriet in her mother’s special order skirt? I was excited that the “gel named Harry” might lead this to being about gender but I don’t think it goes further than those tomboyish sort of things.

I must say that when Harry speaks on the branch of the tree it is captivating. As if Alasdair is speaking out of a little gel. Not that I’m assuming he has the same opinions but her word choice is sophisticated and dominates any other childish attempts at speaking. And it is interesting in a flashback sort of sense to show that Harry has always been interested in being beaten ever since self awareness (obviously that nasty nanny is not excused).

This book is tiring with the perspective and time jumps [the timing of which is unclear]. Both of these happening at once at the start of a chapter makes it harder to stick through a new establishing paragraph. I say this when I was going to be putting the book down anyway, but this was my reaction when I read the first sentence and saw two new names. So much!

How much I adore this chapter of the return of Harry Shetland, though I keep being confused on who this Judy person is. The instant familiarity and rich character building is ever present now. Go Harry! Shave ya head gel!

Holy shit holy shit. In my newest screenplay in which I am conciously thinking of ‘Lanark’ and Gray, for better or worse, I have written a scene where an obnoxious man calls on a woman he barely knows in a surprise, commanding that he will be taking her out for dinner, right now, he’s coming round... I suppose I should rip off the opening of chapter 9 here in that my man had no real reason to know where she lived, but in ‘Something Leather’ he knows her flatmate. Perfect.

I don’t understand how but I’m too tired to read for long at night. Been sleeping at 11 waking at 7. My sleeping pattern is a failure. I can’t accommodate Alasdair.

When it does return to Harry it is underwhelming. They’re still going on about Glasgow, and there is an extended scene being read in a book within the book that needn’t be there from a quick glance. The best part of the chapter is the way Harry looks and the walk through the “paw market.” Confused why she has started talking so much. Too casual. Effortless. Should’ve needed a big event to unlock her tongue and mind.

BroDUDE! Noooo... I thought June was the same person who birthed Harry. I wasn’t prepared for the structure of the book and for some reason I took the opening of chapter two to be the continuation of the first chapter via time jump forward. I have now read chapter 12 with the assumption that Harriet must not at all be involved in this event, because June is her mother, so then I decided June could be the headmistress’ name which I have forgotten, so that Harry could be involved in the proceedings, but that didn’t work. So I decided June has never been mentioned in this book, or she is the same as the woman who helps that small businessman who spied on his employees, only, I think that was actually Harry’s mother’s job? It would’ve been so satisfying an end if I had these characters figured out before reading chapter 12!!!!

And it hasnae even been a week but I’m remembering the abused Harry baby as the baby from ‘London Fields,’ weird to read two similar situations in two books so close together.

I was going to say, cut out In the Boilerroom, Quiet People, and The Man Who Knew About Electricity. Turns out these are recycled material of some of Gray’s plays written over the years. Perhaps not ‘The Man Who Knew’ but that one is not all that entertaining. The perfect length, balancing entertainment and economy would be having all the June, and Harry chapters, ‘The Proposal’ because that’s a cute wee story, and ‘Dad’s Story’ still in the same order. Have Dona introduced through ‘Dad’s Story,’ making her sudden inclusion about for once including his wife in a fantasy. But after reading Critic Fuel for this book it feels right to have this content reused into Alasdair’s most lasting and wide reaching of mediums so far, the novel. These extra scenes of which do effectively show women in varying classes, detract from the main narrative of liberation most profound through June’s and Harry’s story. And I understand that Senga and Donalda were the original group but it comes across as fluff stuff. All of which detracts from the BDSM undertones which come shockingly sudden at chapter 12. (‘The Proposal’ is a very good S&M scenario, and if ‘Quiet People’ were flipped onto Dona’s perspective that would be a solid entry in the book, seeing as there is an interesting sexual relationship to be explored there—is the other man the man who knows electricity? And if the ‘Boiler Room’ chapter is to be made useful give me a sexualised series of anecdotes on various wars and disciplinary authorities. Otherwise ‘Boiler Room’ offers boring Senga building, which could be summarised in a couple of sentences in chapter 12, “as we see Senga now, having been through a divorce and bearing a child...” Things like these, sir.) Give me the novella version of this book, and the play scripts on their lonesome and I would be a happy lad.

Call me stupid but I would’ve been treated easier by the book if the chapters had their chronology made clear.

If I were to adapt this to the screen I would start it with something like a 30 minute BDSM sequence of chapter 12, all her character introduction needs is to show how she styled herself before leather. When June sleeps telling Harry’s life story. When June wakes, having all that follows with the calling in sick, and the envelope payment, through to her return to the secret leatherwork company.

Kind of glazed through chapter 12 in constant confusion as to the identity of June and so I can’t definitely tell you if this was some abduction shit or if there was some valid consent, glad it was a liberating experience whatever happened... it took my eyes flicking back to realise something classically sexual had taken place in the scene.

Honestly would rather reread this than ‘Dubliners.’ Gray has many edges that make his worst books valuable. And this may be his worst book above ‘History Maker,’ though it’s best parts are far better than ‘Kelvin Walker.’

I thought I was going to read through my remaining Gray, but this one tired me so.

‘Devil’s Advice for Storytellers’ is great. Xx

[Evička de Blois · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gray má skvělý smysl pro humor, který nenuceně vkládá do chlípného příběhu a já vím, že jsem ne až tak dávno všem musela velkoryse odpouštět, že máte rádi Houellebecqa, ale evidentě když je problematický obsah zajímavý, tak ho zvládnu ocenit i já. Přepla jsem si mozek do módu - budu si to představovat jako CNC fantazii a vše bude v pořádku. Bylo to (většinově) v pořádku a bylo to hot.
Kromě představ pana chlípného Alasdaira Graye (on si to v doslovu přiznává, takže bez urážky) dostanete i pohled do různých sociálních vrstev společnosti, podle mě i kritiku kapitalismu, takže pokud jste po prvních řádcích čekali pornografii, vymažte si to z hlavy, ať nejste zklamaní.
Každopádně protip pro nepamatováčky jmen a vztahů - pište si kdo je kdo. Já jsem pořád listovala do předchozích kapitol, abych si připomenula - Kdo je ta umělkyně? Jak se jmenovala ta, která šla nakupovat? ATD

4,5/5
půl bodu ubírám, abych si moc nepošramotila svou snowflake pověst

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something Leather is about the love lives of June, Senga, Donalda and a distant cousin of a queen from 1963 to 1990. Also in it are unhappy children, a dangerously liberal headmistress, a tobacconist’s family, a student, nightwatchman, pimp, businessman, boilerman, policeman, ex-serviceman, quiet couple, tinker, nurse, commercial traveller, arts administrator, former Lord Provost, Glasgow comedian, worried civil servant, brilliant but unstable politician, lighthouse keeper and trained cormorant. This is the first British fiction since The Canterbury Tales to show such a wide social range in such embarrassing sexual detail, yet no characters are based on real people, not even the Glasgow comedian.

[Neil P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece consigned forever to charity shops and secret lockers



On the back of "Something Leather" is listed positive and negative reaction to Alasdair Gray's book and in red you can see that his book has clearly riled people incredibly. My own affection for the Glasgow and leather sofas aside (the two fuse amazingly together) this book has some fantastic characters that deviously intermingle on the street and different timeframes. At once a pornographic fantasy and a sociological study discovering and populating the city of Gray's experience.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark and compelling, wonderful array of mostly seedy characters, set against the backdrop of a period where Glasgow was undergoing a great, unsettling industrial transformation which bred great uncertainty in its people and jeapordized its social and economical heart. No surprise then to find Gray utilising the City's year as Culture Capital of Europe (1990) as the turning point of dark turning to light as the city and the characters each find hope in times of great, torturous despair.

[Jaslo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful characters. Kinky sex. Surprising twists. Set in the U.K. Funny.

[Leon Story · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gray is one of the finest living comic (and sometimes not-so-comic) novelists, and Something Leather is an absolute delight: sarcastic, exaggerated, yet never bitter or mocking. Yes, it's a reworking of plays and stories from as much as twenty years earlier, but what a reworking! Its structure harkens back to Gargantua and Tristram Shandy, and proudly displays literary influences all the way forward to his late brilliant friend Kathy Acker, while never ceasing to be ribald Rabelaisian fun. Though it may seem a set of 13 loosely-related stories, there's a lot to be missed if later chapters are read independently. The concluding "Critic-Fuel - An Epilogue" is also a delight and an essential part of the book: Having exhausted his plot, Gray offers a delightful sketch of an alternative involving the same characters, as well as sentences of alliteration stretched to the breaking point, and others entirely in a trotting anapestic rhythm, giving the impression of a very careful writer as well as a very funny one.
I certainly couldn't choose an absolute favorite from among Gray's wonderful works, but Unlikely Stories Mostly,, Poor Things, 1982 Janine and the present book are surely among the most delightful in recent fiction.
Some reviewers have apparently been repelled by what they judge ill-tempered anti-English (or perhaps patriotic Scottish) political bigotry. There are a couple of bits that might be read as such, but they're 'way less than a hundredth of the book, and seem to me good fun: parody or self-parody. (Gray has written a couple of explicitly political books, and they're quite different.)

[mkfs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel opens with the setup for a BDSM scene, the sort of thing I find tiresome with its courtroomlike regulation of behavior overseen by people insisting they are exploring freedom. Having set the book aside for four months, I picked it up again and found that it immediately changes course and presents the background of each of the particpants, only returning to the BDSM scene at the end. Gray's usual insight on character, and believable interactions, are on full display here.

The addendum or epilogue discussing the writing of the book turned out to be very interesting: there are some cutting-room floor scenes which I quite liked, and a discussion of how the novel changed in the course of writing it. A revealing look into Gray's creative process, where the plan of the work is laid out but major characters can come and go as the novel reveals itself in the writing.

On driving:

Using a highly sophisticated implement which every year slaughters thousands, I am constantly achieving and reconciling two different things, maximum safety and maximum speed. This achievement absorbs my whole personality, I am glad to say. Too many folk nowadays do nothing with their personalities but flaunt them.

On modern (circa 1990) Scottish novels:

Half seem to be written in phonetic Scotch about people with names like Auld Shug. Every second word seems to be fuck, though hardly any fucking happens. The other half have complicated plots like SM obstacle races in which I entirely lose my way and give up.

[Pavlo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this as "The Glaswegians" from the "Every Short Story" anthology.

I really enjoyed this. Excellent, well written stories. Or, I suppose a novel in short stories. Most of these are melancholy and beautiful meditations on love and longing, and loneliness, and connection, and maybe even hope. It's a man writing mostly about women, many of them lesbian, some kinky. As a cis hetero male I cannot comment on how "true" that aspect of his writing reads... I suspect that some of it is right on the money, while some of it is comically off, but there's no "men writing women" here, it's all very well done. "The Bum Garden" is maybe my favorite so far, but they're all very good.

It was interesting to be reading "Mr. Lang and Ms. Tain" while also in the middle of Mary L. Trump's "Too Much and Never Enough."

OK... [SPOILERS] there is a protracted non-consensual bdsm scene towards the end there, which... I'm not a fan. Yes, I know it's presented as "she actually enjoyed it" in story, and (2) the plot had been kind of leading to it, so I guess we can pretend the consent is implied (but consent cannot be implied where no previous history exists!?!??), and yes (3), I know we all have moments in life when we're all "soft and only, lost and lonely, strange as angels dancing in the deepest oceans" and wouldn't it be great for somebody to come along and show us that thing we didn't know we wanted, give us that thing we didn't know we needed, and yes (4), they're all very mindful of her during, and very kind to her after, and yes (5), she feels happy and liberated and wants more, and yes (6), I know non-consensual/rape play can be part of a bdsm relationship, BUT! YOU NEED! A RELATIONSHIP! FOR THAT! FIRST! If she has no way to say no, then how would they have known that it's a no - but I mean, for real, RED, safeword, STOP?

Still, I'm sure I'll be coming back and re-reading this in future.

[Alan Shaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't remember what I thought of this when I last read it 19 years ago but now I think it has some interesting moments and a few, very few, interesting characters ... June of course and also very briefly Ella. The book is swamped time and again with petulant petty-minded secondary-school level pious raves against anyone or not Scottish ... no no I mean anyone English ... and against anyone not "working class" ... etc etc.

Janine 1982 is a much better and more cohesive novel than this and the place to start if you want to explore his world.

Glasgow is a wonderful city now and was even 50 years ago when I was growing up there in slum tenements ... a place full of life and culture and warm people.

[Rodney Blotnick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kind of didn't love this. It's like admittedly unfocused but it's still funny and socialist so that was nice. The eroticism is.... experimental for sure, It's undoubtably subversive but some of it will definitely give folks the ick. An american audience could not swallow these sex scenes, especially not with the awareness that they were written by a guy.

[Krista Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has several sections that I would call pornagraphic; one scene describing pedophilia and another a rape. With that said, this book is not for everyone, but I found many of the characters such a delight.

[Madeleine Chambers · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75 I strongly dislike books where the accent is written into the dialogue, it’s simply a pet peeve. Apart from that I enjoyed the characters’ stories but it wasn’t anything noteworthy. I would like to read one of his better known books.

[John Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply entertaining riff on Gray's usual subjects with a firm S&M twist.

[Ell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alasdair Gray is idiosyncratic, frustrating, hilarious, problematic and never ever boring.

[Loen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goood read (:

[Yolanda Cazadora Onírica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una laberíntica sala de espejos, así definiría este libro de Alasdair Gray, capítulos, con un cuento humano, y a la vez sumamente intrigante para cada una de las piezas que componen a las cuatro mujeres principales, caracteres muy definidos, extravagancia, estilo literario modo puzzle en años y encuentros, que además te ofrece un segundo final, ¿con cual te quedas?.
Es un autor que llevo dos novelas suyas leídas, Pobres criaturas y Lanark, y puedo decir que todas son únicas, tiene mucho poder mental hipnótico escribiendo.
Esta novela, quizás sea la más turbia, pero la menos extraña de las nombradas, el mundo femenino, sin hombres y con hombres, la elección, la fuerza bruta interna, escondida que sale a flote, un día cualquiera sucede y una vida cambia, una manera de sentir, de mostrarse al público, y lo público al yo mismo.

Paciencia, es la reina de la ciencia, este es de los libros que ofrece recompensa, se quedan en esas pequeñas joyas que te quedas para siempre en la memoria, como un perfume, una sensación.
Cuatro estrellas, pues me gustaron más las anteriores nombradas.

[Freder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of Gray's finest, but all of Gray is worth reading. Most of my Gray books are cataloged at LibraryThing at the moment. My handle there is FrederFrederson.

[Samantha Bragg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gaaghhhh! Twaddle!

[Iain Watson]

Something Leather (Picador Books) by Alasdair Gray (1991)