William Boyd

I’m a novelist. I met Alasdair while I was studying at Glasgow University in the early 1970s (before Lanark was published). We had a mutual friend in the shape of one Ian Murray, a bookseller. I used to see and chat with Alasdair from time to time in a pub called The Pewter Pot. I wasn’t in his circle of friends or acquaintances but there was a certain renown then about Alasdair as an artist – and there were rumours of this novel he was writing. In later years, we met a few times. I remember being on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week with him when he memorably told Jeremy Paxman to “Shut up!”

What does Alasdair Gray mean to you?

Explain yourself?

He was a very amusing man, in my brief acquaintance with him. He saw life through a comic lens, I believe. Also, he was very honest, not to say blunt. He was sure of his opinions in a very good, straightforward way. I say “unique” because the blend of his personality, his work as an artist and his work as a novelist makes him a one-off.

How did you get to know Alasdair or his work?

By sheer coincidence I was asked to review Lanark in the Times Literary Supplement when it was published in 1981. It was an unusually long review in that newspaper for a first novel by an unknown writer, a full page. I was then asked to write the introduction to the 25th anniversary publication of the novel. This introduction explains more about my connection to Alasdair and the novel, and – bizarrely – to the novel’s then publisher, Stephanie Wolf-Murray.

Anything else about Alasdair you’d like to add?

I think the wonderful thing about Alasdair and Lanark was that, when the novel was spoken about in Glasgow before it was published, it had already attained a kind of mythic status. People sort of assumed it would be a great novel. It’s completely remarkable that this collective prediction should have come true.

Lanark: The book that leaves its mark

Few books intertwine with personal history as profoundly as Lanark.

William Boyd describes how revisiting this monumental Glaswegian allegory was a journey into literature and memory in Lanark by Alasdair Gray

We share our personal perspective on Lanark: A Life In 4 Books