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When Lynne offers money to a homeless man on Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street she is shocked to recognise Angus, her former art tutor from college. Lynne once revered him, even dreamed of becoming an artist under his tutelage. Now, she works as a supervisor at an insurance call-centre. And as for Angus, he has fallen on even harder times . . .
She insists on inviting him to stay at her flat, but just as Angus doesn’t go out of his way to explain the reasons for his misfortune, neither is Lynne’s insistence on taking him in to her home purely altruistic.
The Glasgow Coma Scale is a barbed love letter to the city, a dysfunctional romance, and a story about damage: the kind done unthinkingly, the kind done deliberately, and the worst sort – the harm we do even as we’re trying to do ‘the right thing’.
‘Neil Stewart is the kind of writer who appears once in a generation, gifts fully formed. Through the unforgettable duo of Angus and Lynne, he takes us to places where other novels fear to treat, from the perils of life on a park bench through the murky grey areas of love to the ineffable mysteries of art. Compassionate, brave, singing with life, The Glasgow Coma Scale is an outstanding debut from an extraordinary talent.’ Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies
She insists on inviting him to stay at her flat, but just as Angus doesn’t go out of his way to explain the reasons for his misfortune, neither is Lynne’s insistence on taking him in to her home purely altruistic.
The Glasgow Coma Scale is a barbed love letter to the city, a dysfunctional romance, and a story about damage: the kind done unthinkingly, the kind done deliberately, and the worst sort – the harm we do even as we’re trying to do ‘the right thing’.
‘Neil Stewart is the kind of writer who appears once in a generation, gifts fully formed. Through the unforgettable duo of Angus and Lynne, he takes us to places where other novels fear to treat, from the perils of life on a park bench through the murky grey areas of love to the ineffable mysteries of art. Compassionate, brave, singing with life, The Glasgow Coma Scale is an outstanding debut from an extraordinary talent.’ Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies
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Reviews
Jumps right off the page to challenge, provoke and, in the broadest sense of the term, entertain at every turn.
Part of Fresh Talent
Brutally told, rich in Glaswegian argot . . . Stewart has fun hoodwinking those readers who might expect this to be a different type of story; instead a cacophony of voices entwine like individual threads of a wider tapestry, to create a beautiful portrait of longing and loss.
An intriguing debut, capturing the psyches of two very different people as they look sidelong at the reasons their lives haven't gone quite as well as they'd hoped.
Unfailingly stylish, intelligent, witty and affecting. Neil Stewart's talent is prodigious and extravagant.
An excellent debut.
An assured, original, witty first novel, with a rapidly changing Glasgow as one of the main characters.
Neil Stewart is the kind of writer who appears once in a generation, gifts fully-formed. Through the unforgettable duo of Angus and Lynne, he takes us to places where other novels fear to tread, from the perils of life on a park bench through the murky grey areas of love to the ineffable mysteries of art. Compassionate, brave, singing with life, The Glasgow Coma Scale is an outstanding debut from an extraordinary talent.
Startlingly brilliant.