A Chancer

Ah yes, A Chancer — because sometimes life is not so much a plan as a long, smoky argument with the betting slip.

James Kelman’s novel follows Tammas, a young Glaswegian drifting through gambling, pubs, family tension, low-paid work, and the general business of trying to be free while having absolutely no money. It is bleak, funny, stubborn, and wonderfully allergic to literary neatness. Nobody here is being improved by adversity in a tasteful way. They are simply getting through the day, often badly, often brilliantly, and usually with a cigarette somewhere nearby.

Kelman writes ordinary life as if it matters, which is rather radical when you think about it. The rhythms of speech, frustration, boredom, pride and petty hope all pile up into something grimly comic and oddly heroic. Tammas may be a chancer, but then again, so is everyone who wakes up and assumes the day might go better than yesterday.

This Vintage edition is in Very Good condition, as sold by Crappy Old Books. Ideal for readers who like literary fiction with grit under its fingernails, dialogue that actually sounds lived-in, and characters who would probably mistrust the phrase “character arc”.

A sharp, funny, downbeat slice of working-class life: no polish, no sentimentality, and no guarantee the next horse will come in.

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