The Smiling School for Calvinists

by Bill Duncan

A humorous and startling portrait of life in contemporary Dundee This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0747557578
• ISBN13: 9780747557579
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Length: 199 Pages

Customer Reviews

Playful and Wise

I attended a workshop by Bill Duncan about two years ago, and after hearing him read a passage from "Boys, Girls, Games", I was hooked. Completely hooked. The stories in this book, all connected, cheekily play with forms such as the newspaper article, and the tour book, and create a zany and tantalizing mythology of Dundee; yet at the same time, the stories deal with themes such as the passage of time and the destruction of an old way of life, a problem which confronts many places in Scotland, among other countries. This book is one of my all time favorites, and Duncan is a writer whose imagination and creativity, and sensibility I truly admire.

Very smart, and deeply funny.

Learn how to play Best Man Dies. Is there a coffin box in the elevator in your building? Read about the resients of Blackness Tower. Are they short stories? Essays? Travel-guide excerpts? No one will care, because they are fresh, intelligent and, often, hilarious.