Gallacher, Tom

London. 1984. Hamish Hamilton. 1st British Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0241112656. 175 pages. hardcover. Jacket artwork by Paul Wright. keywords: Literature Scotland . FROM THE PUBLISHER - ‘For reasons that I'm ashamed of now, I was living in Montreal in the spring of 1967': thus begins Bill Thompson's account of life in his twenty-seventh year. A decade after beginning as an apprentice in a Clydeside shipyard, he had a secure job as an engineering officer and a certain partnership in his father's firm to look forward to. Now he is on the run, hiding out in scruffy digs on Montreal's lower east side. His twenty-seventh year is crucial, decisive for his future, a time of double or quits. But there are crises in the lives of other young men too, and Bill's relationship with the tough Glaswegian Hugh Gillespie with whom he shares a room exposes a parallel predicament. Where Bill is pursued, Hugh is the pursuer, seeking after an old friend who was once the ‘witness' to his life. What each of them has to come to terms with, amid the blaze and youthful optimism of Montreal's great World Fair, is the discovery of their own loss of youthful ideals. Tom Gallacher's stories in APPRENTICE introduced Bill Thompson and the earthy Scots he lived with to a wide and appreciative audience. Now, in more cosmopolitan vein but just as fresh, JOURNEYMAN reinforces Gallacher's reputation as a master of acute, funny, cannily crafted storytelling. inventory #599 ISBN: 0241112656.