Galloway archive: books
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Clara published in the UK by Cape/Vintage; in USA by Simon and Schuster.
With "humanism, generosity, and a passionate, beating heart" (The Times, London), Janice Galloway's Clara reignites, from between the lines of history, the great love of Robert and Clara Schumann. In her lifetime, Clara was a celebrated concert pianist and composer, editor and teacher, friend of Brahms, as well as mother of the eight Schumann children and caretaker of her husband through a series of crippling mental illnesses. Distilling the memory, poetry, and music itself, this book examines the ways artists forge patterns out of chaos. "Passion," writes Galloway, "one might take for granted - its control is the mechanism through which all else flows." Dismissing the clichés of Great Art and rejecting the romantic conflation of Madness and Creativity, Clara is a tribute to love and endurance.
"Superbly realized in fresh-breathed prose whichnever once turns stale with cliché, this is fiction so well-realised you wonder why biography even bothers. Behind it is a writer who seems not only to have mastered the trick of imagining her protagonists but - infinitely harder - of imagining their imagination as well." The Scotsman
The trick is to keep breathing published in the UK by Vintage; in the USA by Dalkey Archive Press.
This "amazing first novel" (Chicago Tribune) explores the inner life of Joy, a 27-year-old drama teacher, whose life (and home) seem to be coming apart at the seams after the accidental drowning of her illicit lover. Clutching at the wrong things, reappriaising every corner of her former life, she refuses to give up trying to find "the trick" that will allow life to go on. While painful and deeply serious, this is a novel of great warmth and energy. The wit and irony found in moments of despair prove to be Joy's salvation.
"A superbly rendered first person narrative. . . . A woman with more problems than you, dreadfully well done."--Kirkus
Foreign Parts published in the UK by Vintage; in the USA by Dalkey Archive Press.
What begins as a driving holiday in Northern France for two Scotswomen turns into a caustic and funny account of dysfunctional relationships--both between men and women and between women friends. Cassie and Rona--in their late thirties, both single and childless--are on each other's nerves from the moment they cross the Channel: Cassie is testy and cynical, Rona patient and plodding. Both are self-conscious of the fact that they seem to fit the stereotype of two "spinsters" linked by loneliness, and consequently rebel against the notion that a woman needs a man to feel "complete." Faced with the dilemma of "fancying men and not liking them very much," the women ponder alternatives as they endure one tourist nightmare after another. A book "immaculately described, with the immediacy of an x-ray and all the urgency of poetry"--Penelope Mortimer, The Telegraph.
"Unsentimental, caustic, brilliantly observed and very funny .. a constrantly changing delight to read" (Time Out, London).
"What a relief it is to read a novel that explores pressing issues with intelligent levity instead of didactic heaviness. Shout it from the rooftops: this novel is not just brainy, it's funny!"--Women's Review of Books.
Where you find it published in the UK by Cape/Vintage; in USA by Simon and Schuster.
This is a book of love stories, short tales in which perfect romantic love is largely noticeable by its absence. Thet show love as reality, love despite knowing better, love in confusion, love under black skies and amidst broken glass and rusty wires.
"The familiar, muscular writing that marks all Gallway's prose yanks straight out the nerves of her subjects...Read 'No-one Kisses Like Derek', where the man in question's tongue ("like an engorged mollusc") is discussed by two girls like boys discussing Pele's ability to bend a 90 yard volley. Time to lie down, Dame Barbara." Richmond Review.
"A book that can be felt on your pulses. Galloway is a literary endoscopist: she gets beneath the surface of life and exposes the nerves...Writing has rarely been so visceral." The Independent.
Blood published in the UK by Cape/Vintage; in USA by Random House.
This first collection of stories provided a showcase for Galloway's many voices. Largely set in Scotland, the tales have a dark, freshly-disturbing disturbing edge shot through with moments of hope, vision and light. Hard to find!
"Blood is a salutary collection. It heightens and dignifies the human, and does it with writing that veers between the good and the simply superb"- Scotland on Sunday
"If blue-collar North America provided us with Dirty Realism, then Janice Galloway's fictive world is that of Dirty Surrealism...(stories) that walk with steady, nerve-cracking skill down a nightmare's edge. Blood is a virtuoso work". - New Statesman.
Work published in the UK by Polygon
The very best entries to one of Britain's most prestigious short story competitions - The Scotsman and Orange Short Story Award. Twenty of the best stories from the 2006 competition sit alongside specially commissioned stories from Janice Galloway, Duncan McLean and Brian McCabe.
Secrets published in the UK by Polygon
The very best entries to one of Britain's most prestigious short story competitions - The Scotsman and Orange Short Story Award. The best stories from the 2005 competition with commmissions from Jackie Kay, Ali Smith and Bernarrd McLaverty, and an introduction by Janice Galloway.
Boy Book See published by Mariscat Press.
A slim book of "pieces and poems", edited by Hamish Whyte.
Pipelines published by the Fruitmarket Gallery.
Janice's text for the collaborative exhibition with Anne Bevan, first shown at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh.
Chute published by Les Solaires Intempestifs, Paris.
A monologue commissioned by the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, available only in French translation by Michel Desprats.
The Picador Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction published by the Picador.
Distinctly the best compilation of contemporary Scottish work in years, with an insightful introduction by Peter Kravitz.