R.M. Murray
R.M. Murray is Head of Visual Art & Literature at An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis. Having grown up on Lewis, he studied in Aberdeen and then at the Glasgow School of Art – where he was in a punk band with Peter Capaldi and Craig Ferguson – before returning to Stornoway. He is the author of Bleak.
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SCOTLAND’S NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS: Best First Book of the Year 2021 R.M. Murray has a story. Quite a few of them. Of seasickness, hangovers, the wrong kind of weather. Of the joy of woe, and disappointments fairy-lit with hope. From fishing in the endless rain on the Isle of Lewis to performing in a band with Peter Capaldi and Craig Ferguson at Glasgow School of Art. A stargazer, looking through the wrong end of the telescope. This is a memoir… of sorts. A join-the-dots journey through a life. A series of vignettes and minor personal fables, sardonic and self-deprecating. If it were a wine it would be very dry with an insolent nose and a desperate finish. Complex but approachable. And affordable.
Prizes and awards
SCOTLAND'S NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS: First Book of the Year
REVIEWS OF Bleak
“Unlike any memoir I have read before. and I mean that entirely as a compliment.” Dundee Courier
“Candid, relatable and astoundingly funny.” Nicole Gemine, Dundee University Review of the Arts
“An unfiltered and unapologetic tale … Roddy Murray has done it all.” The Scots Magazine
“An award-winning book which is one of the best you will read in this or any other bleak midwinter.” West Highland Free Press
“Threaded with glints of laughter … fresh and appealing, full of a rich tongue-in-cheek humour, an absurd view of the world.” Stornoway Gazette
"A heartwarming trip through the ruins of youthful delusion, much of which I don’t remember." Peter Capaldi
"The moors, a hamster perishing from hypothermia, the drinking habits of Glaswegian punks, the fascination with boxing, a sheep in a house, the outdoorsy tramping....the subjects are indeed bleak. But the writing is animated, curious, precise and horribly candid. Not bleak. Nor are the many incidental digressions and the constant wryness. Invigorating as a gallon of Lanliq with an Eldorado chaser." Jonathan Meades
“Here we have the trampings of a slight Chaplinesque figure whose fickle fate seldom tires of tripping him up.” Finlay MacLeod