The Scottish novel since the seventies : new visions, old dreams / edited by Gavin Wallace and Randall Stevenson.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 232-243) and index.

Disruptions: the later fiction of Robin Jenkins / Glenda Norquay -- Bleeding from all that's best: the fiction of Iain Crichton Smith / Douglas Gifford -- The deliberate cunning of Muriel Spark / Ian Rankin -- Class and being in the novels of William McIlvanney / Beth Dickson -- Myths and marvels / John Burns -- Tradition and experiment in the Glasgow novel / Edwin Morgan -- Resisting arrest: James Kelman / Cairns Craig -- Innovation and reaction in the fiction of Alasdair Gray / Alison Lumsden -- Iain Banks and the fiction factory / Thom Nairn -- Of myths and men: aspects of gender in fiction of Janice Galloway / Margery Metzstein -- Divergent Scottishness: William Boyd, Allan Massie, Ronald Frame / Douglas Dunn -- Listening to the women talk / Carol Anderson -- Gnawing the mammoth: history, class and politics in the modern Scottish and Welsh novel / Christopher Harvie -- Image and text: fiction on film / Ian Spring -- Voices in empty houses: the novel of damaged identity / Gavin Wallace -- The Scottish novel since 1970: a bibliography / Alison Lumsden.

"The last two decades have seen a new renaissance in Scottish literary culture in which the Scottish novel has attained new heights of maturity, confidence and challenge. The Scottish Novel since the Seventies is the first major critical assessment of the developments in Scottish fiction in this period. Ranging from the work of longer-established authors such as Robin Jenkins, Muriel Spark and William McIlvanney to the more recent experiments of Alasdair Gray, James Kelman and Janice Galloway, it provides a new critical focus on the intriguing relationship between continuity and innovation which characterises the novel's response to the complex changes in Scottish culture and society during the past twenty years. The contributors include established critics and academics as well as younger novelists and theorists. They assess the work of an extensive number of writers in the context of a correspondingly wide range of issues: gender, postmodernism, political identity, archaism and myth, and the theme of disintegration. There are also chapters on the continuing growth of the 'Glasgow novel' and film adaptations of Scottish fiction. A full bibliography of Scottish fiction since 1970 brings this unique critical account right up to date."--Jacket.