From the author of the totally creepy Bunker Man comes another finely honed short novel set in the slightly askew world of northeast Scotland. The teenager on his own for the weekend has a fine tradition in modern fiction, and McLean adds to it with his tale of Patrick, an 18-year old in the tiny town of Blackden. Many familiar elements are present in his story: comic misadventure, unrequited admiration of an older woman, a somewhat manic personality, and alienation from his ostensible peers. He a hard worker and yet gentler and far more thoughtful than those around him. It's a truly affectionate portrait of a boy grappling with his place in the world. McLean's writing is both economical and evocative, as he vividly displays Patrick's life and surroundings.

Once acclimatized to the lovely, amusing and lyrical Scottish vernacular of the first few paragraphs (the vernacular becomes actually addictive) I couldn't stop reading this book, staying up till 3 A.M. or so each night and grabbing for it first thing on waking. As the book is written in 'real time' (over the span of a single weekend) it felt like I'd spent the weekend with the brilliant and sweet and lusty Paddy Hunter himself, in his home town (somewhere outside Aberdeen?) and left me wondering about his next day, Monday - then would he switch jobs? Would he recant his disaffected barbs or would he take pains to get on better with his friends? Will he go on to London or New York and once there, will he feel better or what will happen? I want to know where Paddy will end up, I want to hear what he thinks about; wherever he lands himself, will his disquiet abate itself? How will he deal with what he feels? When I was finished, I turned to page one and began again. The press reviews invoke Holden Caulfield, but I feel that is doing a disservice to McLean's originality and ingenuous, articulate, and chirpy wisdom. He's a guy who finds he is longing for a place to feel at home, or people to feel at home with, but never does the narrative sink to any annoying or whining admission of this; instead, it depicts the uninvited rumblings that disrupt the complacencies and denial that shield us all from the truth of what or where we find ourselves.

Raw, lean, mean, a real grabber. Reminds me of Henry Miller at his best, of Bukowski & both Fantes: John and his son Dan. I recently read a short story collection entitled Working the Hard Side of the Street by Kirk Alex that contains that same type of raw, no holds barred way of writing. Hamsun lives on! Hunger is one of the best novels ever created by an author. I love this book.

A number of writers have written about the experience of being a starving artist. Off the top of my head, I can think of William Saroyan, George Orwell and Jack London. Back when I was a starving artist, I read them all. It was research. I had to know how to live, and what not to do. It was serious business.

I came upon Hunger by Hamsun in the stacks of the library where I went to art school. I loved the book because I was living it. I was so used to being hungry that I lived in a continual state of dizziness and visions. People were always asking me if I was anorexic but the truth was the work I found just didn't pay me enough to pay for rent, transportation, and food. The rent and transportation were constants, so I skimped on the food.

What struck me when I was reading all these writers -- Hamsun included -- is that these poverty-stricken writers were all eating steak. When they ate, they ate steak. So for them, either they could eat steak, or they couldn't eat at all.

And most of them only ate in restaurants. Hamsun's character only ate in restaurants. Unbelievable, his hair is falling out because he is starving, and his idea of a meal is eating steak in a restaurant.

What the hell kind of survival skill is this?

Hunger taught me to become a vegetarian and to learn to cook. I could live off a $.79 bag of lentils for two weeks. I lived off a Halloween pumpkin for another two weeks. When I was flush, dinner was a yam. I ate the parts of vegetables other people throw out. When you're hungry, you learn to be inventive. You learn to make do. You learn humility and patience and resourcefulness. You learn to put up with things that you would consider a real drag or beneath you when you were well-fed.

This is not something you see in the books. These guys are dying because they don't learn from their poverty. They're inflexible; they're dying because they can only feed themselves with their art, they can't take day jobs, they can't invent a way to make art and still eat.

Hamsun's book is a morality tale about inflexibility. I don't think he means it as that, but it's what I learned from it. Hamsun's Hunger changed my life. It taught me, you have to learn to invent, or you'll die. And learning to invent is what being an artist is all about.

Published in 1890, "Hunger" represents a breakthrough from traditional romantic European writing. Influenced by Dostoievsky and Nietszche, and anticipating Kafka, Joyce, and Camus, Hamsun creates a novel with intense personal (partially autobiographical) narration (using first and third person), developing on the theme of alienation and artistic obsession. It represents Hamsun'a masterpiece in his first literary production stage, in which social/political issues are of no concern, only the individual and his stream of consciousness.

It is a plot less novel, the setting is Christiana (now Oslo), and the main character is a starving, homeless young journalist, with a mercurial personality. His reactions have no middle term, he moves from extreme joy to acute depression, from arrogance to humility, on the verge of irrationality. It clearly reflects the author's early poverty, his pathological passion with aesthetical beauty, and an enormous driving force to perfect his concept that "language must resound with all the harmonies of music." "Hunger" anticipates Freud and Jung in their understanding of human nature, and creates a new literally hero, the alienated mind.

Of Norwegian nationality, Knut Hamsun won de the Nobel Price for Literature in 1920. In real life he was ostracized by his countrymen and the literary community as a result of his radical individualism, and political/social views. Yes, Hamsun was a convicted Nazi, friend of Hitler and Goebbels, an advocate of the "pure" race (Jews should be expelled from Europe, Blacks should be returned to Africa), and he applauded German invasion of Norway. Neddless to say, when WWII was over, he dearly paid the price: imprisonment, confiscation, and poverty. When he died at the age of 92 (1952) he showed no remorse and helf firmly to his beliefs.

The question arises: to what extent can we separate art from the artist, creation from the creator? Maybe another Nobel Laureate, Isaac Bashevis Singer, himself a Jew, can answer this question for us when he states: "the whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun."

I like most travelogues, and I love McLean's fiction (Blackden, Bucket of Tongues, Bunker Man), so, even though I've never even heard of Western Swing music, I thought I might like McLean's account of his journey to Texas in 1995 in search of the remnants of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. After reading half the book, I'm forced to admit that I was wrong. While McLean's enthusiasm brims from every page, it's hard for the outsider to care about his descriptions of obscure artists and their tunes.

And while McLean is an excellent writer of fiction, he is alas, only a workmanlike travel writer. He dutifully chronicles his trials and tribulations, but there's a certain zing missing-a lack of true insight perhaps. There is plenty in Texas to remark on, and he does, but having driven across the state several times myself, I never felt I was learning anything new. So, while I love his fiction, I'd have to recommend giving this a pass unless you're a fan of Western Swing.

Some people, judging from their reviews, just didn't "get" the book. That's okay, I can understand it. It's probably best for people like myself, folks too young to have heard Wills' music any normal way, but who somehow stumbled across it and fell in love. If you're a long-term fan of the music, or have never heard it at all, well, I can imagine the book may seem lacking - though personally, I liked the tales of McLean's efforts not to seem too alien to his surroundings, and his disappointment in finding that mid-1990's Texas is not quite the wonderland of Western Swing he'd hoped. That reviewers point out the book seems to be too much about McLean is rather the point - it's a lonely journey and he only catches a few faint echoes of the subject of his search.

The part where McLean attempts a phone interview with an absolutely befuddled Floyd Tillman is fabulous. Tillman's importance to country music is huge, but the peak of his career is several decades past. Tillman can't seem to wrap his head around the idea that some guy from Scotland would even want to interview him - told the title of the book, Tillman thinks it's "Lone Star Swig", which he assumes will be a book about beer!

The question isn't asked too directly, but the book really does make one wonder about how much we appreciate the heroes of our past and the innovators and originators of our cultural history. That the book is written by a Scottish guy looking for the answers to questions most of the "native" people in his book seem to care not a whit about really drives the concept home.

It's a well-written book with a lot of cool tales and McLean comes across as the sort of guy you wouldn't mind joining on a road trip. On that basis, this book works for me.

Two summers ago I took my family down to see some more family in Cedar Park. We saw the Stevie Ray statue in the park along the river, but the part we remember best was stopping in Dumas during their annual Ding Dong Daddy Days.

Bob Wills was just a man who loved what he did, which was making music that made people happy and caused dancing. I can think of no higher calling.

Western swing and Texas fiddle are two enduring gifts to American culture from this crazy place, and I'm just so glad Duncan McLean came to visit and wrote such a fine book about it.

These stories describe the antics of contemporary Scottish pond life. But they do so in a flat, affectless voice. The experience is akin to half watching other people whilst waiting in a bus station. Only slightly more diverting than watching dry leaves being blown about on a crisp autumn day.

Good, solid, slice-of-life type of stories. Reads quickly.

From the author of the totally creepy Bunker Man and the deftly delightful Blackden comes this collection of 23 short stories ranging in length from a half-page to 42 pages. McLean's voice and fine writing is as evident in these short works as in his two novels. If one placed each of his novels at the end of a spectrum of creepiness and wholesomeness, the stories in this collection would fill the gap between them. Indeed, the longest story, "Hours of Darkness" shares many of the creepy and ultimately nasty characteristics of Bunker Man, while others such as "Tongue" or "The Druids S***e It and Fail To Show" hearken to Blackden. As a whole, the collection is a great example of the new Scottish writing, and a perfect introduction to McLean.

The writing is good but in general, the story lacks originality. Maybe I've read too many books of this sort, but the plot development and the ending itself were far from surprising. Maclean should have spent more time in developing the characters other than Robbie Catto. Using perspectives other than Robbie's to present story details would leave the reader with a more complete understanding of Maclean's intentions. Is this a story about insanity creeping up on someone? Or is it a story about how accepting modern people are of another's mental instability and their willingness to turn a blind eye? I was doubtful that the Bunker Man character even existed outside of Robbie's head for most of the book. This seems due to Maclean's unintended obliqueness -- and a problem with keeping Robbie's viewpoint front and center all the time. On the positive side, this didn't take long to read and some of the writing is exemplary. Not the sections which deal with the sexual trysts between Robbie and the yo

I am somewhat reluctant to post a review only a few days after I've read the book but I've had Bunker Man on my 'to read' pile for several months. I read all the reviews long before I bought the book but I finally decided it was something that I wanted to read despite the negative reviews, being a fan of Scottish fiction. And I've got to say that I was marginally impressed.

To address previous reviews, yes, the book is graphic, offensive, contains horrible language, is not a mystery, is hardly a thriller, and lacks a certain amount of character development, as most of it is spent on protagonist Robbie Catto. Having said that, if you don't mind any of the above, I think that Bunker Man is a fine piece of Scottish fiction.

This book paints a rather unsettling picture of a school janitor as he sinks into a psychotic paranoia. And yet, the reader can't help but see some good in him even after he's done his best to alienate himself from society and the reader's sympathies. At the very least McLean is gifted at eliciting emotion from the reader.

If you're a devotee of Scottish fiction and have a strong constitution, give it a try. I was more than happy I took the time to read it. I guess its because of the presence of the bunker, but I was immediately reminded of Iain Banks' similarly controversial yet brilliant Wasp Factory. McLean's style of fiction fits well into that of his contemporaries such as Banks, Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner and James Kelman.

This is a wonderfully written book that does what really good fiction should do: it stays with you and makes you rethink its characters' motives and actions over and over.

I write this in response to the reviews which call this book irresponsible and/or perverse and/or glorying in immoral behavior. I find this critique to be without basis. If reading books or watching plays about immoral activities is immoral, then let's start with banning Macbeth and move on from there.

Yes, this book is creepy, but that's the point. It is extremely effective creepiness.