Cover Image: Dirt Road

Dirt Road

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Member Reviews

Thanks James Kelman and Canongate Books for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After his mother’s recent death, sixteen-year old Murdo and his father travel from their home in rural Scotland to Alabama to be with his American aunt and émigré uncle for a few weeks. Stopping at a small town on their way from the airport, Murdo happens upon a family playing zydeco music and joins them, leaving with a gift of two CDs of southern American songs. “Ye meet people and they have lives, but ye don’t,” thinks Murdo, an aspiring musician.

While at their kind relatives’ house, the grieving father and son share no words of comfort with each other, Murdo losing himself in music while his reticent and protective dad escapes through books. The aunt, “the very very best,” Murdo calls her, provides whatever solace he receives, until his father comes around in a scene of great emotional release.

As James Wood has written in The New Yorker, “The pleasure, as always in Kelman, is being allowed to inhabit mental meandering and half-finished thoughts, digressions and wayward jokes, so that we are present” with his characters. Dirt Road is a powerful story about the strength of family ties, the consolation of music, and one unforgettable journey from darkness to light.

An enjoyable read, I was gripped by the characters.

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James Kelman writes wonderfully about grief and growing up. Dirt Road is seen through the eyes of Murdo, a teenager going on holiday to visit family in America with his father not long after losing his mother. (His sister had also died of the same illness years before). Neither Murdo nor his father is a great talker and the isolating effect of grief is beautifully portrayed. Murdo is a born musician but his mother was the musical one, not his dad, so that is one more missed point of contact between father and son. Murdo's dreaminess leads them to miss their bus connection in a small town. They have to stay overnight in a motel and Murdo meets a lovely girl in a convenience store who plays music with her family including her amazing grandmother Queen Monzee-ay. They invite him to a music festival which takes place just before they are to return home (and a long way from where they are staying.) Murdo don't ask his dad if he can go (he's certain his dad would refuse as they are very much beholden to their hosts and their hosts plans), so Murdo just thinks about it all the time at his great uncle and aunt's house, looking at Lafayette on the map but without saying a word about it. The lack of autonomy of those teenage years when you are almost grown up but can't drive and don't have friends around, comes across well and Kelman convincingly takes us inside Murdo's head. He loves his aunt as he gets to know her, but can't help hurting her feelings by disappearing to his room for hours on end, or saying no to invitations (and you feel his father's frustration at the perceived rudeness and lack of gratitude). The changes that happen happen slowly and rather beautifully as some sort of understanding grows between the bereaved father and son. The writing about music and musicianship is perfect and underpins the whole of the story.

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Very disappointed with this book. Found it slow, boring and just not for me. Sorry.

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I settled to become involved in aspects of Murdo's life. Yes, death, relationships, racism, friendship. Time is precious and I,enjoyed sharing it.

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