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Fred Urquhart's lively collection of stories deals with life in the
immediate aftermath of the Second World War and demonstrates his
fascination with American culture and its effect on Britain. The
title story - a highly amusing satirical novella - presents a young
Scotswoman who is desperate to cross the Atlantic as a war bride in
order to get to Hollywood, armed with a tartan skirt and a copy of
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Other stories portray an eccentric woman
who has watched too many films, an American musician who has been
luckless in his marriages, and an Edinburgh office where the
typists have to cope with a predator. Urquhart takes us to London
with a tale of an Aberdeenshire farmer's wife in search of fancy
shoes and to occupied Germany, where a horse-loving soldier
acquires a wife. In the final piece, two sophisticated women from
London find life in the country too much for them. Throughout,
Urquhart employs his sharp wit and his unique way with dialogue,
creating a gallery of memorable characters.
Highly praised by leading critics on its first publication this
collection of some of Fred Urquhart's most subtle and skilful
stories depicts the lives of a variety of Scottish characters, at
home and abroad. He deals with social class and inter-generational
conflict, aspirations and disasters, the passing of time and
memories of the past. Urquhart displays his profound understanding
of the dreams and behaviour of his predominantly female characters,
whether it be an admirer of a great Scottish novelist, trying to
discover the truth about her heroine, or a young woman encountering
the horror of the Peninsular War; a middle-aged entertainer
reminiscing while searching for her reprobate daughter in Paris or
a woman fated to wander back and forth across the Atlantic. Comedy
and tragedy intermingle in these stories, and throughout Urquhart
displays his remarkable ability to make his creations speak in a
totally convincing way.Highly praised by leading critics on its
first publication this collection of some of Fred Urquhart's most
subtle and skilful stories depicts the lives of a variety of
Scottish characters, at home and abroad. He deals with social class
and inter-generational conflict, aspirations and disasters, the
passing of time and memories of the past. Urquhart displays his
profound understanding of the dreams and behaviour of his
predominantly female characters, whether it be an admirer of a
great Scottish novelist, trying to discover the truth about her
heroine, or a young woman encountering the horror of the Peninsular
War; a middle-aged entertainer reminiscing while searching for her
reprobate daughter in Paris or a woman fated to wander back and
forth across the Atlantic. Comedy and tragedy intermingle in these
stories, and throughout Urquhart displays his remarkable ability to
make his creations speak in a totally convincing way.
This is the first publication of the last collection of his short
stories that Fred Urquhart planned. It displays the full range of
his work: unsparing stories, tragic and comic, about ordinary
people in twentieth century Scotland; historical tales in settings
from Bohemia to Dundee; and unconventional ghost stories with such
disparate themes as the identity of the Third Murderer in Macbeth
and goings-on in Lillie Langtry's household. As always, Urquhart
the master storyteller excels in vivid dialogue and the creation of
memorable characters, often placed in challenging circumstances.
And in many of these stories he uses the freedom of the late
twentieth century to explore various forms of sexuality with an
enhanced frankness.
Some of the best of Fred Urquhart's ghost stories are gathered in
this volume. They include humorous and satirical tales, depicting
an afterlife in which dispirited spirits, although perhaps
unionised themselves, are oppressed by what they see as the banal
horrors of modernity. Other stories, such as 'The Saracen's Stick'
and 'Proud Lady in a Cage', convey a real sense of evil, often
rooted in the genuine horrors of the historical past. The title
story reflects Urquhart's lifelong interest in the theatre,
economically telling the story of the great actress Ellen Terry
through the reminiscences of her ghost. Throughout he displays the
great skill in characterisation and dialogue that he is noted for,
and, as in all his work, his native Scotland is seldom far away.
"The Year of the Short Corn" was first published in 1949, and the
war, or its immediate aftermath, forms a presence in most of the
stories. It can be a civilian family gathered together with
scattered serving children for a precious Christmas leave, or a son
or daughter returning from one of the services; it can illustrate
clothes rationing, and the avid fervour with which civilian women
greet silk stockings; it can be a 'townser' who thinks too much of
himself who becomes snowbound on a North East farm, or the rage and
humiliation of a young castrated ox. It can even be an Edinburgh
boarding-house with a kenspeckle crew of lodgers (and an oversexed
bulldog), under the eyes of a bewildered refugee girl from Vienna.
Fred Urquhart was praised by George Orwell for the striking variety
of his subject matter, and by others for his splendid dialogue, and
his portraits of characters, especially women. None of these
critics was wrong, but there is more here to praise!
By 1937, many people, both employed and unemployed, were
anticipating war, but from 1939 they were all thrust into it. Fred
Urquhart's second collection of short stories reflects this. The
young men are often reluctant to sign up for the Forces: the world
seems on the move. Tenement dwellers react to the mysteries of
Blackout, sirens, air-raids, air-raid shelters. Urquhart's stories
reflect all this in robust and often comic fashion. The longest,
'The Laundry Girl and the Pole', concerns one of his favourite
subjects, the transformation that foreign soldiers could bring to
local girls, relatively starved of freedom, in the exciting new
Blackout. Wild nights in the chip shop! Language ceases to be the
major problem. Sudden brief romances become the risky order of the
day. red Urquhart (1912-1995) was born in Edinburgh and spent much
of his childhood there, where his grandparents lived, and later he
worked in an Edinburgh book shop for some years ('my university').
He is best known as a superb short story writer. When he began to
write it was the heyday of short story magazines, and this was the
only obvious way to earn a living as an author. He spent the war in
the north-east of Scotland, a conscientious objector relegated to
farm work: his stories of this are agreed to rival Grassic Gibbon
and Jessie Kesson. But later he went to London, finding the louche
world of Soho more to his taste than Edinburgh correctness. Later
he lived in the country in a 'happy homosexual marriage' and he did
not return to Scotland until 1991, after his partner's death. The
Ferret Was Abraham's Daughter (1949) and Jezebel's Dust (1951) are
his two great novels of Edinburgh's poorer citizens in wartime.
sobel Murray is Emeritus Professor in Modern Scottish Literature at
the University of Aberdeen. Recent publications include new
editions of Naomi Mitchison and Jessie Kesson, and Scottish Novels
of the Second World War, which has chapters on them, on Urquhart,
and Linklater, Jenkins, Spark, Hood and Mackay Brown, as well as a
new edition of her biography, Jessie Kesson: Writing Her Life.
The scene is Edinburgh, 1939. Lives are about to change. Blackout,
bomb shelters, cinemas, dance halls, all call out to the girls and
young women that life need not be dull. This book, set in one of
the poorer areas, is full of the comedy and extraordinary dialogue
for which Fred Urquhart is well known, and the Hipkiss family and
its neighbours are foregrounded. But central is the imagination of
young Bessie Hipkiss, aged fourteen, only just too old to be
evacuated. Bessie's fantasy life as a princess of an exiled French
Royal Family contrasts with the disappointing ordinariness of
everyday, until she meets Lily McGillivray, only six months older,
but already with peroxide and men on her mind. But when Bessie's
mother dies her father expects her to raise the family. Life
changes. Fred Urquhart (1912-1995) was born in Edinburgh and spent
much of his childhood there, where his grandparents lived, and
later he worked in an Edinburgh book shop for some years ('my
university'). He is best known as a superb short story writer. When
he began to write it was the heyday of short story magazines, and
this was the only obvious way to earn a living as an author. He
spent the war in the north-east of Scotland, a conscientious
objector relegated to farm work: his stories of this are agreed to
rival Grassic Gibbon and Jessie Kesson. But later he went to
London, finding the louche world of Soho more to his taste than
Edinburgh correctness. Later he lived in the country in a 'happy
homosexual marriage' and he did not return to Scotland until 1991,
after his partner's death. "The Ferret Was Abraham's Daughter"
(1949) and "Jezebel's Dust" (1951) are his two great novels of
Edinburgh's poorer citizens in wartime. Isobel Murray is Emeritus
Professor in Modern Scottish Literature at the University of
Aberdeen. Recent publications include new editions of Naomi
Mitchison and Jessie Kesson, and "Scottish Novels of the Second
World War", which has chapters on them, on Urquhart, and Linklater,
Jenkins, Spark, Hood and Mackay Brown, as well as a new edition of
her biography, "Jessie Kesson: Writing Her Life."
Jezebel's Dust is the story of two young teenage girls infected by
the love of uniforms in Edinburgh and London early in the war. They
come from the slums and have no very high education or
expectations, but the war is opening up new possibilities. Lily
McGillivray is the chief man-eater and increasingly a 'good time
girl'. She exploits and encourages her more passive and awkward
friend Bessie Hipkiss, leading her astray with energy, as they meet
up with sailors and soldiers, Free French, Polish and American.
Ambition, sex, money and idleness are Lily's motivators. All the
old standards are defied, and civilian life gradually becomes as
dangerous as the military, in its own way. This is the novel
Urquhart most wanted to have read by a new audience. Fred Urquhart
(1912-1995) was born in Edinburgh and spent much of his childhood
there, where his grandparents lived, and later he worked in an
Edinburgh book shop for some years ('my university'). He is best
known as a superb short story writer. When he began to write it was
the heyday of short story magazines, and this was the only obvious
way to earn a living as an author. He spent the war in the
north-east of Scotland, a conscientious objector relegated to farm
work: his stories of this are agreed to rival Grassic Gibbon and
Jessie Kesson. But later he went to London, finding the louche
world of Soho more to his taste than Edinburgh correctness. Later
he lived in the country in a 'happy homosexual marriage' and he did
not return to Scotland until 1991, after his partner's death. The
Ferret Was Abraham's Daughter (1949) and Jezebel's Dust (1951) are
his two great novels of Edinburgh's poorer citizens in wartime.
Having admired Fred Urquhart's work for many years, Colin Affleck,
a fellow native of Edinburgh, became a friend of his on his return
to Scotland in 1991. Urquhart later appointed him as his literary
executor. Among Dr Affleck's writings on Urquhart is a study
focussing on his short stories, which appeared in "British
Short-Fiction Writers, 1945-1980" (edited by Dean Baldwin). Dr
Affleck is now working on a biography of Urquhart.
Originally published in 1940, Fred Urquhart's first collection of
short stories brings to life the modern Scotland of the 1930s,
using his inimitably vivid dialogue. He shows the struggles of
working-class women, whether labouring in a sweatshop, facing death
in a tuberculosis hospital or seeking escape on a bike of her own.
His male characters also have problems, caused by army life,
religion or homosexuality in a period of oppression. Life is
sometimes overshadowed by the approach of war. But there is comedy
too, for example a fraught day at Glasgow's Empire Exhibition of
1938. And Urquhart looks beyond Scotland, with the story of a young
American woman and her sailor, a sketch of an Italian soldier in
the Spanish Civil War and a comic tale of a film director in Hell.
Fred Urquhart (1912-1995) was born in Edinburgh and spent much of
his childhood there, where his grandparents lived, and later he
worked in an Edinburgh book shop for some years ('my university').
He is best known as a superb short story writer. When he began to
write it was the heyday of short story magazines, and this was the
only obvious way to earn a living as an author. He spent the war in
the north-east of Scotland, a conscientious objector relegated to
farm work: his stories of this are agreed to rival Grassic Gibbon
and Jessie Kesson. But later he went to London, finding the louche
world of Soho more to his taste than Edinburgh correctness. Later
he lived in the country in a 'happy homosexual marriage' and he did
not return to Scotland until 1991, after his partner's death. The
Ferret Was Abraham's Daughter (1949) and Jezebel's Dust (1951) are
his two great novels of Edinburgh's poorer citizens in wartime.
Having admired Fred Urquhart's work for many years, Colin Affleck,
a fellow native of Edinburgh, became a friend of his on his return
to Scotland in 1991. Urquhart later appointed him as his literary
executor. Among Dr Affleck's writings on Urquhart is a study
focussing on his short stories, which appeared in British
Short-Fiction Writers, 1945-1980 (edited by Dean Baldwin). Dr
Affleck is now working on a biography of Urquhart.
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