Description: Lonely biographer Ian Alexander MacDuffy tries to uncover every detail of the short but colourful life of the charismatic Glasgow playwright Campbell McCluskie in search of some universal meaning behind the coincidence of McCluskie's murder with the exact moment that MacDuffy's mother died giving birth to him.
Brief description: Alistair McNaught was born in Lennoxtown, Scotland and grew up in Bearsden, a burgh on the outskirts of Glasgow. After graduating in history and philosophy at Glasgow University, he moved to Oxford, where he worked as a bookseller for sixteen years, before becom-ing a sales representative for a London-based book distribution company. The Tragicall History of Campbell McCluskie is his first novel to be published. He now lives in Wantage with his wife, Sarah, their two daughters, Iona and Heather, and a melancholic white rescue cat named Alba.
Review Quotes:
'Alistair McNaught's ingenious fictional biography brings to life not only slain playwright McCluskie but also the mid-twentieth-century Glasgow he inhabited. McCluskie's literary career, social life and erotic escapades are vividly evoked against a backdrop of smoke-filled bars, sombre tenements, and back streets haunted by prostitutes and razor gangs.'
Andrew Crumey