Cogitators of Supererogatory Records,

Swing Hammer Swing by Jeff Torrington is on the list and rightly so. The book follows a week in the life of Tam, Tom, Tommy or Thomas Clay as he awaits the birth of his first child during the demise of the Glasgow Gorbals.

On a sicknote, or unemployed, with his wife in maternity hospital, Tam's days are free and Torrington lets us stumble around with him from debacle to dilemma. Tam never becomes too attached to each of these situations and Torrington never attempts to debate the issues Tam observes the symptoms of but yet we are able to understand his passing conclusions through the results of the incidents. Protestant-Catholic sectarianism is witnessed and although Clay doesn't declare support for one side or the other, the extremist becomes the victim of his own behaviour in a believable turn of the plot. Clay's wife is of middle-class stock and he is constantly at the mercy of their idiosyncrasies and lofty superfluous; this is, at least, how they are seen by the humble but intelligent Clay.

The language of this book might be troublesome for non-Scot, but the use of local dialect could have been much heavier, Torrington strikes the balance just right, he makes the book accessible but applies colloqialisms in the right amount to compliment the setting of the novel. I was mightily impressed by some of the descriptions and imagery used. This is perhaps my favourite section:

Over there standing, but only just, was the Brandon Snooker Hall. Dampness had laid a green baize on its bricked-up windows. Where were they now, those gallus geometricians whose wordless lectures on the properties and projections of the moving sphere had us leaning on the smoke in awe? Cuts Colquhous, Spider Sampson, Skinner Murphy: gone - all of them - potted by Time, the fastest cue in town.

That is brilliance.

There is no plot to speak of, only themes raised by observation. Swing Hammer Swing is as good as the reader wants it to be and that is surely a writer's target.