Dirt Road

I have loved the work of the under appreciated James Kelman, and I felt no different towards The Dirt Road. Those familiar with his work will feel at home with his use of the vernacular, the disregard for grammatical conventions and the stream of consciousness approach that makes us vividly realise Murdo. Its appeal revolves around the engaging Murdo and the universal themes of love, loss, grief, and finding your place in the world. Murdo's soul driven passion for music lends him the capacity to see the world and analyse it through the framework of music. Kelman's language and iteration aptly mirrors the rhythms of music. Of course, the American South is rich in its traditions of differing music styles some of which find themselves showcased in this novel.

A lonely 16 year old Murdo and his father are leaving their Scottish Island home for a holiday in Alabama with relatives. Both are burdened with grief and loss, Murdo has lost his mother and his older sister, Eilidh. There is a clear lack of communication between them, silence is the norm. A missed bus due to Murdo getting distracted leads to Murdo meeting and making music with the astonishing black grandmother and musician that is Queen Moonzee-ay. Murdo plays the accordeon, is enraptured with Zydeco music, has feelings for Sarah and is over the moon to be invited to join them at a musical event in Lafayette, Louisiana. Despite the obstacles, Murdo finds his way there, although it is achieved covertly. Getting there exposes Murdo to a series of adventures which solidifies his belief in himself. His fearful father has to find the inner resources to come to grips with this picture of the gifted musical son in a place and with people he had never associated him with. Murdo will brook no alternative to his future other than the one he wants and his dad is terrified of letting him go on the dirt road of music and life.

The trip gives Murdo the possibility of seeing who he is and what he could be. He and his father see each other in a different light amidst relatives and music. Murdo is shocked by some the racist history of the American South and his intense animosity towards the casual racism of Conor. He does not identify with the strong Church connections of his relatives and refuses to go despite the pleas of his father. He has always felt his sister is always with him giving him strength. Music is his religion, nothing else comes close. Murdo's rich introspective interior life and music allows him to work things out in a way that works for him. It is what lends the picture of Murdo the authenticity that makes you believe in him. He is so real and it is music that keeps him safe and sane.

The Dirt Road is outstanding in both its simplicity and complexity, a remarkable feat in itself. It feels plotless which underlines the quality of Kelman's writing and storytelling. He allows Murdo to evolve and cope effortlessly and without manipulation. Amidst the background of the American South, a young boy learns to cope with grief, explore his identity, make connections in the new world and learn more about his father. He manages to avoid the pitfalls that could have led to a future that was safe but would have been soul destroying for him. A book to treasure! Thanks to Canongate for giving me an early ARC of the book.

This book is both simple and complex and drew me in from the start. It is a well written story of a young boy dealing with loss and grief in his life. Murdo finds his way in his passion for music. Many thanks for my copy. I reviewed on Goodreads.

This was a meandering story of a young lad from a small island in Scotland and his father. Seen through the eyes of Murdo, 16, nearly 17. Slow, descriptive it is a coming of age and touches on many aspects, death, relationships, racism, friendship. I loved this book and the style of writing.

I initially struggled with this book as there was so much of what seemed like minutiae. I am so glad I kept with it as I really started to feel like I was in Murdo’s head. I found the story engaging and the relationships complex but realistic. I couldn’t put it down after about a third of the way through and enjoyed the whole thing.

Murdo's life is music and it's to that he turns following the loss of both his mother and sister to cancer. His father takes him to visit relatives in America. Ever wanting to be alone Murdo goes out on walks or retreats to his basement bedroom to listen to music. He struggles to see why others can't understand the yearning he has to immerse himself in music until he chances across a famous black musician whilst out on one of his random strolls. He ends up duetting with her on her spare accordion and his ability is immediately recognised. Along with the characters this chance meeting provides, Murdo sets off on a road trip of self-discovery.. Kelman's skill is weaving together seemingly random happenings so that they literally give Murdo the solid platform he needs on which he finds the confidence and ability to perform. As readers, we can all share the journey and perhaps even find the confidence to occasionally push those boundaries a little bit more ourselves.

There's little gentle lead-in with his latest novel; 'Dirt Road,' begins with no real introduction to characters or setting. Murdo and his father get up early in the morning, go through the house to check the electricity, gas, water and windows and then head off to the ferry terminal. They are going to America. Until we realise that Murdo has forgotten his mobile phone there's no indication that this story is contemporary, as far as the landscape and details go it could be set any time in the last decades. Murdo himself is equally vague, when asked by a schoolmate how long the American trip will take the answer is imprecise:
'Two weeks I think.
Ye think!
Well maybe it's two and a half'

The reason for this vagueness is the key to the novel's slow tentative pace and unexpectedly enthralling unfolding. We know that it's just Murdo and his father making this journey, the perfect set up for a male bonding experience, but neither character is happy with this isolated, masculine existence. 'When Murdo thought of 'his family' ... the family was four and not just him and Dad. Mum died of cancer at the end of spring. This followed the death of Eilidh, his sister, five years earlier from the same disease ... The cancer his mother and sister suffered struck through the female line and ended in death. Males cannot help. All they can do is be there and supportive. What else? Nothing, there is nothing.' Murdo's father escapes into his books, reading throughout their journey and stay with American relations. Murdo knows there is an escape from the numb misery of his situation, but it is going to require a more complex solution than his father's portable paperbacks.

Murdo only really comes alive with music; his passion and talent are enthralling. While the story of 'Dirt Road' is ridiculously simple (will Murdo manage to travel to a music festival and take his place on stage with the legendary Monzee-ay?) the narrative is anything but. 'Dirt Road' is one of the most powerful presentations of the mourning process that I have read in a long time. It is a book of love and loss, of talent, family and of really great tunes. It's a reminder that some stories cannot be told quickly and some journeys will not be rushed. Frequently slow and often painful, 'Dirt Road' is highly recommended reading and a reminder to seek out more Kelman books in the future.

A road movie in print. Extraordinary writing, a stream of half consciousness that made sense even without the punctuation. Jack Kerouac meets Franz Kafkas little brother. The insecurity of a 16 year old sewn together with an overprotective Dad both in an incomprehensible world. A great book.

Dirt Road by James Kelman

A clear book about grief, music, and a passage through the American South by a Scots boy, Murdo, and his father. Written as Murdo plays music, entirely caught up in the minute. Fast passages, slow passages, space given to each moment, all linked by breath. A masterpiece of writing, nothing jarred me from the narrative flow and I read this book in several days. Mr. Kelman, who is new to me, is in full control and I relaxed.

Writing as Murdo Mr. Kelman has shifted one of the most loving characters ever out into the world. Murdo is innocent and normal and damaged and brilliant and spacey and sixteen. Living his story you worry about his Dad, you see America and you learn to hear. I can’t remember reading descriptions of sound and music in other books and caring so.

In this time, as the Zydeco Queen says, we are not willing to be given presents others wish to give us. We grab only what we want, while refusing the tender offer. If Dirt Road profers a boy dangerously loving and perceptive, I accept. An excellent read for anyone who wants to be lost in the interior monologue of an exceptional person – authors such as Salinger, Haddon come to mind as well as many fine YA writers.

New novel “Dirt Road” is the first book I’ve read by Scottish writer James Kelman. It may not be representative of his usual work as I believe he has a reputation for writing novels that invoke Glaswegian patterns of speech which make it difficult for people unfamiliar with this dialect to understand. His Booker Prize winning novel “How Late It Was, How Late” was surrounded by controversy for its frequent use of bad language, but Kelman responded to these objections saying he was honouring and representing how working class people in Glasgow actually speak. “Dirt Road” features both Scottish and American Southern dialect because the story is about a US road trip, but it’s very readable and easy to understand. This emotionally affecting story closely follows the experiences of Scottish teenager Murdo as he and his father visit relatives in Alabama shortly after his mother died of cancer.

I’ve find it can take a while to get into novels that are so embedded in the moment to moment thoughts and feelings of their protagonists. It can feel at times like a chaotic accumulation of superfluous detail and tedious observations. It’s a testament to the skill of Kelman’s writing that I was surprised to find after fifty pages or so how mesmerising this narrative became and how close I felt to Murdo as he navigates a country that is bewildering and foreign to him. What’s more, his position of naivety gives a fresh perspective on social, national, racial and economic divisions within society highlighting their ridiculousness. In the middle of the novel, Murdo and his father Tom travel with an aunt and uncle to an American Scottish festival. The dress and activities on display here are a strange simulacrum of outdated traditions and are out of sync with modern Scottish sensibilities. It makes for funny scenes but it also feels like this contrast between the idea of a unified national character and actual Scottish characters make a poignant and timely statement about how national identity is porous and changeable. Kelman isn’t mocking the sense of community that festivals like this give, but he shows how they are more about the idea of a nation rather than truly representing the evolving complex reality of a nation.

Murdo is a talented accordion player and his teenage passion for this musical art form is poignantly rendered. He tries to explain to his father how he’s not academically gifted in the traditional sense, but gets a sensory education from listening to music: “Just hearing it the way I’m hearing it, it’s like learning, although I’m just listening like I hear it and I learn it. It’s just the way I do it Dad so I mean that’s just how it is.” When Murdo encounters attractive girl Sarah and her grandmother Queen Monzee-ay who is locally famous for her Zydeco music, the impressionable boy is strongly drawn to playing alongside them and joining this charismatic group of performers. Naturally, his father is protective and wary of his son setting out with bands of musicians when he’s still only sixteen and not an American citizen.

At the heart of the novel is how Murdo and his father Tom’s relationship changes as they learn how to live without the mother and Murdo’s sister Eilidh who died many years ago. I can’t help but feel Kelman must have been inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” in some way because of the novel’s title and the emotionally fragile father-son relationship it portrays as they travel together without a mother. When I think of McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel I’m immediately reminded of the chilling horror it portrays, but my more lasting impression is the bond shown between a man and his son. It’s a tricky thing to do especially because many men conform to their gender roles and don’t often openly discuss emotion. The same is true in “Dirt Road” where Tom spends a lot of time reading on his own while Murdo likes to escape to his aunt’s basement to listen to music in solitude. Conversations between them are short and to the point. Details about the emotional discord created by the mother’s death are gradually revealed, especially how Murdo was placed in a caring position for his father. He thinks with resentment: “The son shouldn’t have to feel sorry for the father. Jesus didn’t feel sorry for God.” But their experiences together during their journey create a more harmonious bond and mutual respect for each other.

Kelman is attentive to small differences in customs and behaviour making America strange to this Scottish boy such as the way tax is only added at the point of sale, the way many Americans use fork and knives differently from Europeans and the social separation between racial groups that exists in parts of the American south. It makes for atmospheric reading as it is so finely filtered through the sharply observed perspective of a sensitive teenage boy. Equally strong is the way Murdo is bewildered by his own changing identity as he builds a sense of self out of his interactions with other people: “Ye look in the mirror and see other people. Because they are seeing you.” This is an impactful story about a damaged father and son building a connection and respect for each other amidst their lingering grief, but it is also about how artificial lines of division break down when real connections are formed.

I can see this story of a teen settling on his vocation is an artistic and viable piece of work. Indeed told in first person which is tough to do, I did not feel claustrophobic: the writer.converts the contexts and other points of.view on the young man's solutions. Music is his life as he.comes to recognise on a vacation trip with his dad from Scotland to USA where he finds a group of sympatico musicians. His dad worries he won't sustain himself financially but these people seek.community and friends and ask him to trust then: dad is out of picture - and we're okay with that. I guess I found the artistty of the book leaning toward digressions. The release at end of book is excellent as he opts to go with his idealistic musician friends after they give him a generous gift. His unresponsive dad has been replaced along the way with communicative and loving aunts, and there things warm up - but I am not sure why we are learning so much about his family - it's the break away from them which is the central thrust of the book - well observed psychology but long way around - it is a particular taste . Not for everyone

Slow paced novel about a father and son, both united and separated by grief. Music is the key to the son's recovery but can he explain this to his father? Read the book to find the answer. Well written.