The writer
Frankie Gault







Friday 15th January 2021



The books I have chosen in the following pages may not necessarily be for reasons of artistic significance but may simply be because of the socio-economic or emotional circumstances of the time. In the same way that a song will often remind us of certain times in our lives, and even the bad times will have good songs, then this is about some of the books and short stories that have lingered longer for reasons that were not always the most pleasant. Also please ignore any violin music you may hear in the background as I’m not looking for sympathy. My experiences in life were mostly guided by my choices. All I’m doing is simply trying to put words to events hopefully to describe the landscape of my childhood and youth with regard to fiction.


Q1) The first book you ever loved

My Father died when he was 40 leaving my Mother with four young sons. The eldest was 15 and at 4, I was the youngest. Although the following years were really poor financially she still managed to buy me all the children’s classics and taught me to cherish the written word. Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Robin Hood, The Coral Island, the usual wee boy’s adventure stuff. I loved them all as they took me away from the uncertainty and fear of the world outside my window. Ours wasn’t a particularly tough scheme but sometimes children were worse than adults and life was never easy. We were often taunted about not having a Daddy and made to feel as if in some way our family was deformed because of that. We never admitted it at the time nor talked about it later but that period scarred us all. We really just grew up scared.

I was given a book as a prize in Primary 7 just before leaving for high school. This was in June 1969. It was a prize for General Knowledge. As far as I knew no other class had a prize for this subject and really it would be like getting a prize nowadays for Trivia! Anyway the book was called Tom Swift and his Outpost in Space and I fucking loved it. I grew up in the 60s in tandem with the Space Race and anything not of this world always seemed to attract me. Maybe that’s why I reference the Moon so often in my own fiction and have often been described as being “a wee fuckin moon man” I still have the book which, given the amount of jail sentences and house moves over the years makes it even more remarkable. It was my only achievement in 11 years of schooling, although I did get plenty of second prizes out in the playground. The book reminds me of a time of optimism, my Mother had remarried and there was at least a sense of financial if not emotional security. However, all our problems lingered in the background and mine were exacerbated when, at 14, I finally discovered alcohol. But that’s another story.

Q2) The book you’ve read more than any other

Probably 1984, I read it every 4 or 5 years when I was younger. I should read it again because much of what Orwell wrote about has come to pass. e.g. the destruction of language and definitely the era of mass surveillance. Catch-22 was another book I read often. I knew I could open it at any random page and within a few lines I would be laughing. Then, as the full horror of war was laid bare I realised that randomly opening the book nearer the back would soon have me in tears. Funny and tragic in equal measures, satirical and absurd, it’s an astonishing novel that fits easily into the strange times we now find ourselves in. Outgoing President Trump looks, talks and behaves as if he has strolled right out of the pages of Catch-22. In Catch-22 Milo Minderbinder arranges for the Germans to bomb his own base, Trump arranges for his followers to attack the Capitol. Fuckin nutjob.

Q3) The book that most disappointed you

I was serving a prison sentence in England in 1980 when Jean-Paul Sartre died. I knew nothing about him or what he wrote about but being a non-smoker in prison meant you could afford life’s little luxuries and mine was that I got the NME delivered every week. It was my bible in those days and they went big over the death of Sartre. And so I read about the existentialists and their lives and when it came to Camus, I was hooked. I remember writing to a pal and saying something like:”...now this guy Camus, what a fuckin guy. Gallus as fuck, wrote like fuck, drank like fuck, shagged like fuck and even played fitba like fuck.” I was paroled in ’81 and on returning to Leicester immediately joined the library. The only Camus novel I could find was The Myth of Sisyphus and I took it away with me. Back at the bail hostel I settled down and opened the book.

Jeezo what a shock. Every second word seemed to be absurd, in all it’s forms, absurd, absurdness, absurdity absurd absurd absurd ABFUCKINSURD. It genuinely gave me a sore head. Then the realisation dawned on me, everything crystallised about who and where I was, how my life had been so far and, crucially, where I was headed. How dare I think I only had to turn a page to attain enlightenment on such a serious philosophical strand. I hadn’t tried a leg at school and got expelled eventually. In effect, I had not really had an education. I was 22 and had just finished my 4th custodial sentence. I realised that I was nowhere near ready to read and understand such a book. Unless, of course, I was willing to change my life completely, the clichéd crossroads point. As soon as that thought entered my mind it was dismissed. I knew I didn’t have the mental strength for such a change. Not at 22. The truth was that the book didn’t disappoint me it was me who disappointed the book. So what did I do? I threw the book at the wall, put Searching for the Young Soul Rebels on my record player, opened another bottle and reached for the Tuinal. A month after leaving prison I could barely tie my shoelaces.

Q4) A book full of beautiful writing

By the late 80s I’m back in Port Glasgow, 7th and final jail sentence completed but still beaten by my own weaknesses. At least I have my own wee flat and managed to get it done up pretty good. I’ve worked less than 2 years in the whole decade and basically detest myself. It’s hard to escape alcohol in this neck of the woods and, in fairness, I didn’t try. I tried to keep reading though, a bottle in one hand and a book in the other. Many a time, standing at the garages or one of the doo huts with a cargo I would pull out Solzhenitsyn and begin reading aloud to my pals. Especially if one of them had been banging on about the jail. Here, here’s a fuckin jail I would say, then batter off a couple of pages from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Sometimes a book would cause more panic than a knife. I kept a pile of books beside my bed for all the sleepless days and nights coming off drink, the sweats, the nightmares and daymares and the general daily terror of life as an alcoholic. One of these books was And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov. Everywhere the reader turns there is conflict, in the characters personal lives and in the national situation. A story spanning many years, it tells of revolution, war and civil war. Amidst the carnage though, Sholokhov paints a tender and loving portrait of the countryside and the life of the Don Cossacks. This works as a counterpoint to the brutality of their lives and the tender beauty of the landscape is a welcome contrast to the ugliness of war and the grim daily existence of the people. A stunning novel.

Q5) The book you’ve been meaning to read for years, but haven’t

There are so many it’s hard to know where to start. If they all fell on me at once then I would be dead. Death by Fiction. What I do know is that there are a greater number of books I’ve been meaning to read than those I have actually read. This number has multiplied since I sobered up and staggered into the Creative Writing world, landing on a desk at Glasgow Uni in ’09. So many new names for me. Hunners.

Q6) The book you’re reading currently

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. We looked at a couple of his short stories in class and this novella came to me as a present so I’m enjoying the clean prose and brilliant voice. It’s a short novel though and I can hear a lot of jostling and rustling on the book shelves as they all jockey for position.

Q7) Your favourite short story

Again, where do I begin. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. Uncle Ernest from the same collection, those two linger. Matryonas House and Other Stories by Solzhenitsyn, Flannery O’Connor, Steinbeck, Kelman, Trainspotting, ask me in half an hour and it will all be different.

I remember tears rolling unashamedly down my cheeks on the 07.22 Port Glasgow to Hillington going to work one morning. I was devouring my way through the Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor and had just finished reading The River. Nobody gets the damned better than O’Connor. From the same collection, The Life You Save May Be Your Own and The Lame Shall Enter First are both stick-outs for me. Much recommended. Carver’s Why Don’t You Dance? The master of omission and repetition.

Q8) Your all-time favourite novel

When I broke my leg playing football in Barlinnie in 1984 I was what you call a bed-down, no work or recreation and as much exercise as my condition would allow, which meant none. When allowed back into prison circulation I noticed that there was a Higher English class available. I joined immediately. There were only 3 in the class and the other 2 weren’t really interested. This meant I got almost one-to-one tuition from the amazing Kay Blackstock, sadly now deceased, but an amazing woman who led a brilliant life. I still have my Barlinnie jotters even now and sometimes I read the couple of short stories I wrote for class. Most of the pencil writing is quite faded as you would imagine. At the back of one of the jotters is a list of my favourite books. In reverse order the top three are: The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler and my favourite book in 1984 was Big Sur by Jack Kerouac. I was 26 at the time and hadn’t really grown up. It’s a matter of debate whether I have even now. I fancied that I had all the habits and attributes of the doomed, young Romantic writer, but had absolutely none of the talent. Maybe it’s a sign of my maturity that I at least recognise that now. Other chart entries from ’84 are All Quiet on the Western Front, The Old Man and the Sea and Borstal Boy. My favourite novel nowadays would be different I guess, or would it? Maybe not, maybe for reasons nothing to do with Literature it would still be Tom Swift and his Outpost in Space. Happy reading folks. ●







Frankie Gault is a writer from Port Dundas who refuses to grow up. He has been published numerous times by thi wurd fiction magazine, and most recently his story Shiny Shoes was included in The Middle of a Sentence, The Common Breath Short Prose Anthology 2020.






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