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Connor is twenty-four, brilliant, broken, and out of control. He's the swaggering frontman of The Ossians, a Scottish indie band on the brink of signing a major record deal.
Desperate to make their mark, they head off on a two-week winter tour across the cities and hinterlands of Scotland – a last-ditch attempt to find fame, purpose, and themselves.
But the tour soon spirals into a surreal, chaotic odyssey. From seedy bars and snowbound towns to a final, defining Glasgow gig, the band hurtles through a whirlwind of seagull massacres, botched drug deals, a mysterious stalker, radioactive beaches, bomb-testing ranges, epileptic fits, riotous Russian submariners, deadly storms, epiphanies, regular beatings and random shootings.
You know sex, drugs, rock n’roll. But what about seagulls, dead bodies and Russian submariners?
The Ossians is a gritty, chaotic coming of age tale about young Connor, the singer of a Scottish indie band on the edge of glory. Their tour is full of youthful arrogance, of indulgence and self-discovery - and it goes off the rails into absolutely majestic madness.
Each setting felt pulled from the fuzzy tequila-scented memories of early 20’s, the dive bars, the gigs so loud you can barely breath, dark sticky rooms and bad decisions. It reeked of desperation, of passion to succeed and make your mark.
But their career-defining tour becomes something you’d read about in a book - drug deals, stalkers, fights, shootings and even stranger occurrences. Connor and the band were a complex lot - fuelled by a mixture of ego and love, superficial yet vulnerable at once, the archetypes of the struggling artists without falling flat.
This book was originally released ten years ago, and it still packs a hell of a punch. Best read with low lighting (if you can) and pint of cheap beer.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
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