MATTHEW HAWKINS relishes the valiant defiance of two gay Scottish painters whose example resists both collectors’ taste and historical fiction
A shrewd observation of the absurdities of modern labour
Lee Scott’s native Runcorn a simulacrum for Churchtown
[Rept0n1x/Creative Commons]
Essays on contemporary Latin American feminism, a poetry debut by a queer Texan of Mexican heritage, and a lush volume of tango and milonga drawings
JOHN McINALLY welcomes a rigorous class analysis of the history and exploitation of sectarianism by the Scottish ruling elite
The bard pays homage to his two muses: his wife and his football club
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by an incoherent show that fails to question stereotypical assumptions about the Soviet Union
WILL STONE, JAMES WALSH and MARIA DUARTE review Souleymane’s Story, Sunlight, Good Fortune, and After The Hunt
Swan Songs
Lee Scott
Repeater £10.99
THERE aren’t enough novels about work – despite it taking up so much time, of each day, of each life.
Lee Scott’s debut novel Swan Songs is about working in a Big Pharma factory where a mysterious chemical solution is transferred into vials that are packed and then dispatched.
Our hero and narrator, Leonard Swanson, has been compelled by the Job Centre in Churchtown (a simulacrum for Scott’s native Runcorn) to take on shifts as a line-picker. His job is menial in the extreme, but also soul-destroying because Leonard is an aspiring rap legend and would much prefer to be at home working on “the best album ever” – the Swan Songs of the title.
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LEO BOIX introduces a bold novel by Mapuche writer Daniela Catrileo, a raw memoir from Cuban-Russian author Anna Lidia Vega Serova, and powerful poetry by Mexican Juana Adcock
CHRIS MOSS relishes the painting and the life story of a self-taught working-class artist from Warrington
JOHN GREEN recommends that rare thing, a British novelist who is politically aware, entertaining and who writes to the moment
JONATHAN TAYLOR is entranced by a collection that touches themes of homelessness, loneliness and abuse with dream-like imagery