The Changeling

Description

Thirteen-year-old Tom Curdie, the product of a Glasgow slum, is on probation for theft. His teachers admit that he is clever, but only one, Charlie Forbes, sees something in Tom and his seemingly insolent smile. So, Forbes decides to take Tom on holiday with his own family, with tragic consequences. From one of Scotland's greatest writers, The Changeling explores how goodness and innocence is compromised when faced with the pressures of growing up and becoming part of society.

Robin Jenkins OBE was born in 1912 and has been hailed as Scotland's greatest fiction-writer. The author of more than thirty works of fiction, including the landmark novel The Cone-Gatherers, he received the Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun Award in 2002 for an outstanding contribution to Scottish life and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Saltire Society in 2003. He died in 2005.

If you are interested in books that are human and wise, then treat yourself this year to some Robin Jenkins -- ANDREW MARR A remarkable writer * * The Times * * A delight to read * * Times Literary Supplement * * If you have not read Jenkins, this witty, affecting novel, which wears its political convictions lightly, is a wonderful place to start * * Financial Times * * A poignant study of deprivation and alienation * * Times Educational Supplement * * The Changeling is one of the best, most completely realised of Jenkins' novels . . . the novel's real strength lies in the way its naturalistic surface is shot through with those moments of vision, dream, and ultimately nightmare . . . its reissue is long overdue -- ALAN SPENCE Jenkins is quite simply a major contemporary writer * * Herald * * Robin Jenkins is the most outstanding novelist that Scotland has produced since the war -- COMPTON MACKENZIE