Rodge Glass - Alasdair Gray: A Secretarys Biography

RODGE GLASS is now a novelist (No Fireworks and Hope for Newborns), but wasnt when he first encountered Alasdair Gray in a Glasgow pub in 1998. Since then, while pursuing his own writing ambitions, he has filled many roles in the life of the writer/artist. He has taken dictation whenever and wherever asked: whether Gray was in bed, in hospital or drinking soup cold from the can, he was there with a pad or a laptop, awaiting instructions. He has been a barman, tutee, secretary, signature-forger, driver, researcher, advisor, chief technology negotiator, tea-maker and paper boy, with varying degrees of success. In this book Glass attempts one more role: biographer. Born in Manchester, he lives in Glasgow.

No Fireworks

Hope for Newborns

A Secretarys Biography

RODGE GLASS

First published in Great Britain 2008

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright 2008 by Rodge Glass

All photographs in the illustration section have been provided courtesy of Alasdair Gray with the exception of the following: King of Gibraltar, 1957 (courtesy of Margaret Bhutani); With friends Liz Lochhead and Edwin Morgan in Berlin (image courtesy of the Herald & Evening Times picture archive); Preparing for his public, with biographer and glass of wine at the Aye Write! book festival, Glasgow (Tommy GaKen Wan www.tommygakenwan.com)

The author is grateful to Alasdair Gray and the following publishers for permission to reproduce copyright material in this book. Jonathan Cape for extracts from: Lean Tales; 1982, Janine; and Something Leather. Canongate for extracts from: Lanark; Unlikely Stories, Mostly; The Fall of Kelvin Walker; How We Should Rule Ourselves; The Ends of Our Tethers; and A Life in Pictures. Bloomsbury Publishing for extracts from: Ten Tall Tales and True; Poor Things; Mavis Belfrage; The Book of Prefaces; and Old Men in Love

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them

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Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New York and Berlin

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 9781408833353

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This book is blamed on Ross McConnell,
who introduced me to the work of Alasdair Gray in 1998,
and persuaded me to stick with it.

In memory of the people in this story who died while
it was being written: Angus Calder, Archie Hind,
Malcolm Hood, Philip Hobsbaum, Ian Mcllhenny,
Alasdair Taylor and Jeff Torrington.

A BIOGRAPHY IS A JOINT EFFORT

A SECRETARY DOES HIS DUTY

A Short Poem About Junk E-Mail,
and the Problems of Introducing Ageing Artists
to the Subtleties of the Form

Alasdair!

Dont look!

What? he says. What is it? Show Me!

I click, to messages from

Viagratastic; Nikkicam;

WecanmakeyouthreeinchesbiggerbyChristmas.

The great man stands, paces, pouts, points skyward

(He replies to all his mail)

says, Take dictation!

Dear Sir or Madam,

You will do no such thing.

Yours Truly.

RG 2003

The first conversation between biographer and artist about this project took place during a short coffee break in February 2005 a much-needed one for me. The previous night I had gone to bed, not sober, with an idea in my head I was now finding it difficult to get rid of, and I was struggling to concentrate on my secretarial duties.

The day before, I had met a friend for a quiet afternoon drink in the university bar. Professor Willy Maley was doing one, a novel mixed with an extended essay. They were all the rage. Well, my Grandma Betty would finally be able to claim a doctor of sorts in the family (very important for a nice Jewish boy), and perhaps there were financial benefits if I could get funding, but I was far from convinced by the idea.

After the session we returned to the bar, and I told Willy very definitely that I simply wanted to write novels. If I ever mastered it (unlikely) and wanted to be an academic (possible) then Id give him a call, but for now I had other work to do. Besides, the book I was working on was about two young, sexy people locking themselves in a bedroom for five days hardly the stuff of serious academic theory. The only proper cultural contribution I could make, I said, speaking without thinking, would be to write a biography of Alasdair Gray and not a dry, academic project that anyone with a stack of books and a love of bibliographies could do either, but something more ambitious something funny, entertaining, personal, a proper record for future generations and everyone knew that, typically, Alasdair wanted to do the project himself. But we made an appointment for the following week anyway and I stumbled home. I wasnt sure I meant it, but there it was. Alive.

The idea was not an entirely new one. Several weeks earlier (again, Im afraid, after a night out) Alan Bissett had encouraged me to document my relationship with Alasdair. Youre a part of living history, Rodge you should write his biography hed said, drink in one hand, drink in the other. If you dont, in a hundred yearsshh, Shhcotland will be very annoyed with you! This, I told him, was a ridiculous proposition, and that it was time for us all to go home to bed. But now here I was, so soon after, in the Gray kitchen, getting ready to announce it as if it was my own plan. Pouring out the third coffee of the morning and struggling with a hangover, I brought up the idea of the biography with the man himself. Perhaps I just wanted to be rejected so that I could get on with the days work. But, more likely, I wanted to be told it was a great idea and to go off and start right away.

That day Alasdair had been furiously working on the historical sections of How We Should Rule Ourselves, a pamphlet he was co-writing with Glasgow University law professor Adam Tomkins; they planned to do the whole thing in three weeks, because, as Alasdair put it, political books should be spat out. He was dictating his parts to me, occasionally asking my opinion on a small thing here or there, sending me off to find out a date or fact, but less so than usual. It had been for a man ten years late with his Book of Prefaces a tight schedule, and we were having a difficult afternoon. With only a few days until deadline (and working a thirteenth day out of the last fourteen) he was hurriedly racing through the entirety of British chronological history, trying to get up to the French Revolution by six oclock but getting distracted by small, infuriating details like the Hundred Years War. Pacing the room, stuttering, pointing at the screen, dictating, re-dictating, starting again, forgetting what hed already done, losing the latest printout and picking up one a week out of date, Alasdair was at his most infuriating. Like many of his assistants before me I was going steadily insane trying to hurry him up, politely explaining that if he wanted to get the book out in time for