'Something Leather' is about the love lives of June, Senga, Donalda and a distant cousin of a queen from 1963 to 1990. Also in it are unhappy children, a dangerously liberal headmistress, a tobacconist's family, a student, a night-watchman, pimp, businessman, boilerman, policeman, ex-serviceman, quiet couple, tinker, nurse, commercial traveller, arts administrator, former Lord Provost, Glasgow comedian, worried civil servant, brilliant but unstable politician, lighthouse keeper and trained cormorant.

This is the first British novel to show such a wide social range in such embarrassing sexual detail, yet no characters are based on real people, not even the Glasgow comedian. the inefficient Scottish Office department in the Epilogue never existed- since 1967 its work has been done efficiently by the office of the ombudsman.

The story starts, a crisis, a catastrophe and a moral. Unlike Alasdair Gray's other books 'Something Leather' has no fantasy, and combines the amenities of a novel with the varieties of a short story collection.

Publishers details: Jonathan Cape

ISBN:0 224 02627 5