1982, Janine (Canongate Classics)

An unforgettably challenging book about power and powerlessness, men and women, masters and servants, small countries and big countries, Alasdair Gray's exploration of the politics of pornography has lost none of its power to shock. This is a searing portrait of male need and inadequacy, as explored via the lonely sexual fantasies of Jock McLeish, failed husband, lover, and businessman.Yet there is hope here, and the humor—if black—and the imaginative and textual energy of the narrative achieves its own kind of redemption in the end.