Unhappy Go Lucky by Ian Pattison

Years ago the fact that Rab C. Nesbitt had to be subtitled in England made quite a few folk smile. From the writer of all ten series of that programme, Unhappy Go Lucky promises a fast-paced but moving epistle of Glasgow family life.

I only know of one person in Scotland called Ivan and he's the main character in this book, so it was already something new. But it seems either this book has had a serious cleaning up or the stories just aren't that funny or entertaining. And as far as relationships go, Ivan keeps his mum to the peripheries of the tales from his childhood, just as she's not really included in his adult life. She doesn't get a chance to play an equal part alongside him, even though their relationship is supposed to be the core of the narrative.

It's hard to find the tales of his mother's terminal illness moving when he doesn't actually listen to her himself or let her speak in her own words. In this respect she's already an empty space, even before her death. And punctuating the book with fights between his parents gives the book a feeling of uninspired plotting, like a badly weaved together patchwork quilt. It doesn't do the author justice as far as comedic punchlines go.