 First edition | |
| Author | James Kelman |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Stream of consciousness, political fiction |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton |
| Publication date | 2004 |
| Publication place | Scotland |
| Media type | |
You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free is a novel by the Scottish writer James Kelman, published in 2004.
Plot summary
 | This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (March 2020) |
Critical reception
Irvine Welsh, writing in The Guardian, highlights Kelman's originality and technical ability, and notes that this challenging novel which deals with the theme of "our identity and status within the globalised order" is "the book that many hand-wringing liberals have always wanted to write but are manifestly ill-equipped to undertake". In his review, Welsh concludes that "this brave and provocative novel deserves to be widely read".
Dwight Garner in The New York Times wrote that "this novel happens to be very, very fine -- his best since How Late It Was, and in some ways his most angrily profound book, period. It's not just a first-rate drinking novel and a first-rate elegiac failure novel and a first-rate Fred Exley-ish novel about loserdom (loserdom being the song Kelman was born to sing). It may also be the best -- it's certainly the most paranoid -- book we've had thus far about the political and social reverberations of 9/11 in this country.".
References
- ^ Welsh, Irvine (22 May 2004). "A Scotsman abroad". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
- McIlvanney, Liam (22 July 2004). "Give or take a dead Scotsman". London Review of Books. 26 (14). Retrieved 23 January 2014.
- ^ Garner, Dwight (23 May 2004). "How Soused I Was, How Soused". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
| Works by James Kelman | |
|---|---|
| Novels |
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| Short story collections |
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| Essays |
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 | This article about a 2000s novel is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |