Leathered by Chris McQueer REVIEW

Leathered Chris McQueer

There is a saying that goes for writers: the first book you write is going to be the easiest to write, but the hardest to publish, while your second book is going to be the hardest to write, but the easiest to publish. It is with this mindset that I look at Scottish writer Chris McQueer’s second book, Leathered, the first novella released by Speculative Books, a group of independent publishers based in Glasgow, Scotland.

The plotline of this short, comedic novella follows a prison guard by the name of Frank who works in Barlinnie prison in Glasgow. After shaking down the cell of a prisoner named Joe, he discovers a smartphone and discovers that Joe is actually a twitter celebrity. Later that same day, Frank ends up joining the social media platform and boasts about how he could beat North Korean dictator Kim-Jong Un to a pulp. When a North Korean citizen called Cho discovers this, however, she uses this as a piece of propaganda against her government. Events snowball from there, with Frank becoming a symbol of revolution within North Korea and Kim-Jong Un challenging Frank to a televised one-on-one bare-knuckle fight at the SSE Hydro. How does this event conclude? Look to the title for an idea.

Chris McQueer started off his writing career by posting his short stories to twitter. He quickly gained popularity and eventually moved to create his own book. He released his first book last July, a collection of short stories called ‘Hings: Short Stories ‘n’ that’ published by 404ink. It became very popular, with one quote describing it as “hilariously surreal snapshots of working-class Scotland. Limmy meets Irvine Welsh.” Chris McQueer originally intended for Leathered to be included among the rest of his short stories. However, as he continued to write this, it developed to the point where he felt it would work better as a stand-alone title, and I can’t help but agree. In an interview with Speculative Books, he describes it as “one of the stories I’ve written that has taken the longest length of time”.

The novella is just as funny as his previous stories and is a sweetly sized package of fun comedic moments, making it a great first novella from a new writer, as well as a first novella from a group of independent publishers who are better known for releasing poetry. In his previous book, Chris switched between writing his stories from traditional English to Glaswegian Scots. However, in this book, the main language of the text is English, with Scots only taking up a minor part of the dialogue. Another welcome addition to this book is the regular illustrations done by Paul Dock that pop up throughout the book and add humorous additional imagery to the story. My only qualm with this book is its length – at ninety pages, I feel this book would have benefited from additional content.

The publishers themselves hold a reputable spot within the Glaswegian literary scene. In honour of this event, co-founders of Speculative Books, Dale McMullen and Sam Small, who also won 2018’s iteration of the Slam Poetry World Competition, hosted a small launch party at Glasgow’s Sub Club. It included performances of comedy, music, spoken word, and readings, with McQueer closing off the event by reading excerpts from Hings, Leathered, and even a sneak peek into his current work in progress, another short story collection called Repeat Prescription. The publishers and writer publicized this book very well, with Chris personally signing messages inside the first one hundred hardback copies of his book before the book was available for general release.

I struggle to find the words to accurately describe this book while giving it due justice. However, I think Mark Dallas, the owner of Insane Championship Wrestling, summarised it perfectly in his quote for the book – “Captivating, thought provoking and laugh out loud funny from the next big thing in Scottish literature.”

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Leathered Chris McQueer
Verdict
A perhaps too short, pocket-sized fun story from Scotland’s up-and-coming author. Review copy purchased
8