Rodge Glass
Rodge Glass was born in 1978. He is originally from Cheshire, where some of his large, many-tentacled family still live. He is the product of an Orthodox Jewish Primary School, an 11+ All Boys Grammar School, a Co-Ed Private School, a Monk-sponsored Catholic College, a Jerusalem classroom, Kibbutz Yahel in the Israeli desert, Strathclyde University and finally Glasgow University. His first novel, No Fireworks, was published in 2005 and was nominated for four awards: The Dylan Thomas Award (Worldwide), The Authors’ Club First Novel Award (UK), The Saltire First Book Award (Scotland) and The Glen Dimplex Award (Eire). His second novel, Hope for Newborns, is to be released by Faber in June 2008, with his biography of the Scottish writer and artist, Alasdair Gray, to be published by Bloomsbury in September 2008. He has also written journalism, for The Herald, The Scotsman, The List and The Big Issue Scotland.
Books by Rodge Glass
Working with Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography
‘Alasdair Gray was not always the rapidly ageing, fat Glasgow pedestrian he likes to describe on the inside leaf of his books. There was once a time when he was young. A time when he was really rather thin. Many years when he went unpublished and unrecognised. This book aims to document, as faithfully as possible, that journey from son of a box-maker, encouraged to paint, write and do whatever made him feel good, to septuagenarian ‘little grey deity’ (as Will Self has called him). This book will look in depth at the people, events, books, paintings, plays, poems and circumstances that conspired to make the man as he is today’
Rodge Glass.
Suiting form to subject, Rodge Glass has brought the inventive techniques of Gray’s fiction to bear on the biographer’s role. Mixing a chronological narrative of his subject’s life (at the rate of one chapter per decade) with his own affectionate, offbeat diaries of meeting, getting to know and working with the artist, writer and campaigner, narrative and diaries eventually dovetail in a riotous final chapter on the publication of Alasdair Gray’s latest novel, “Old Men in Love”, in October 2007.
‘a thorough, loving portrait of the artist as quirky genius’
Jonathan Coe, Guardian Books of the Year.
‘a successful and appealing book’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Glass’s book is an apt and entertaining tribute to a unique talent and one that will surely stand the test of time.’
Big Issue
‘Working intimately with Alasdair Gray has led Rodge Glass to write a biography that is – much like its subject – haphazard, joyful and exuberant.’
The Herald
September 2008
World volume rights : Bloomsbury
Hope for Newborns
After serving in the Army, Lewis Passman’s grandfather founded the Victory Barber Shop in Manchester in 1945, as a tribute to all things Great and British. But three generations later the shop is being attacked by anti-war protestors and Lewis isn’t sure which side he’s on any more. He spends half his time trying to save his broken family and the other half trying to escape it: he wants to travel the world and find something to believe in. So when he receives an invitation from Christy to join the charity Hope For Newborns, ‘designed to help you repair your own damaged life and lives of others’, he finds it impossible to resist…
Hope For Newborns is full of comedy and sadness and the complications of modern life without faith – a warm and funny love story about two young people who’ve seen enough of the world to know they want more.
‘Glass has written a compassionate and quietly comic study of a country which has forgotten how to take pride in itself.’
The Guardian
‘It’s about family, responsibility, culture and community. Glass’s characterisation is excellent.’
Independent
June 2008
UK & Commonwealth : Faber
All other rights : Jenny Brown Associates