10 Reasons to Buy Slammer

This week marks the e-publication of Allan Guthrie's Slammer, a novel that will melt your brain and then lick it out of your earholes, it's that good. To mark this momentous occasion, I will forgo my usual Tuesday afternoon naked céilidh and instead give you - yes, you, The Book-Buying Public - ten concrete reasons why you should dip into your virtual wallet and splash out your very real readies on this slice of awesome.

Brace yourself, we're about to get sexy ...

1. Slammer is the quintessential Allan Guthrie novel. If you've read and enjoyed any of his books, stories, interviews, candid photos, glimpses of his face pressed against your bathroom window, then you will dig this like you're trying to tunnel to Australia. It is the hard liquor to his beery previous work, and it represents a dizzying distillation of his typical concerns - abnormal psychology, claustrophobic settings, tar-black humour, and a narrative that is as fractured as his protagonist's mind. It's his best book so far, and he's an Edgar nominee. And even if you don't know what an Edgar is, you should still be impressed. Go buy.

2. At the same time, Slammer is historical fiction (it's set in 1992, fact fans) and very much falls into the Scots Gothic tradition exemplified by Robert Louis Stevenson and James Hogg. It straddles pulp and literature like a Colossus, swinging its balls at all those who failed to bridge that gap. As a result, it's not only one of the most readable and entertaining Scottish novels of the last ten years, but also possibly one of the most important. Yeah, you heard. I said important. Take that, James Kelman. Go buy.

3. It's the result of intense research on Guthrie's part. He didn't get locked up or anything (never convicted, right, Al?) but he did his homework. So all those odd little things that happen in the book? They probably happened. The kitten in a coffee jar? Yep, that really happened, except it was a live kitten, which makes it less disturbing. I think. Go buy.

4. The movie people, they love the book. Seriously, they can't get enough of it. Slammer has been optioned for the silver screen not once, but twice, by both the UK and Hollyweird. And if you honestly don't think that movie's going to be made, you're off your proverbial trolley. So best you pick up the book now, otherwise you won't have a leg to stand on when the movie comes out and you need to lay around the place spouting shit about how the adaptation just didn't have the esprit de Guthrie about it, and how he's sold out and now all he writes are Thomas Harris style screen treatments instead of books. Yeah, I know you lot better than you know yourselves. Go buy.

5. Pretty much every review of the book has stated at some point that it "won't be to everybody's taste". Subjective consensus is rarely a good barometer of quality, despite what you may have been told by the shit-peddlers* whose livelihoods depend on pandering to the lowest common denominator. Divisive art is frequently the most interesting because it makes us approach it from a critical standpoint as well as a consumer. Therefore pretty much every review of Slammer says that it's fucking brilliant. Go buy.

6. It's dedicated to me. That's right, my name's in it. And I don't allow my name - my precious brand - to appear on a bad book**. Go buy.

7. Slammer appeared on at least nine separate Best of 2009 lists. I dare say it appeared on a whole load more written by people I don't particularly care about or magazines I don't read, but nine is the number I came up with after my extensive research. I fully expect it to sweep the Best of 2011 lists, too. Which makes you about as fashionable as Limahl's lip-liner if you don't pony up the green, daddy. Go buy.

8. It's a proper cross-genre book. I'm not talking about vampires versus Asterix versus George Eliot versus Cthulhu kindergarten cartoon bollocks, I'm talking about the real deal - the kind of internal, paranoid, humanist sci-fi that Horselover Fat used to write mashed up against a thick, bloody slice of modern Scottish crime. It's slipstream noir, without the self-parody or dames with gams up to their false eyelashes. It's something you haven't read before, and it doesn't alienate you to prove its literary point. Go buy.

9. Slammer is one of those future classics you read about. You know the kind, you see their name mentioned in a textbook about the great crime writers and you go, "Hey, where is that book? I'd like to read that book. While it's clearly not to everybody's taste, I have a warm, shimmering feeling in my special parts based on the synopsis alone." And then you realise you can't get hold of it because the book didn't hit its audience quick or emphatically enough in the six-minute window that apparently counts as a publication period these days. Such is the case with Slammer, which had the lowest print sales despite it being the best of Guthrie's books. If it weren't for this e-version, it would be a difficult find in a couple of years, which is great news for the collectors, but terrible for the rest of the reading world. Go buy.

10. It's less than a fucking pound. Think about that. What else are you going to buy? A five-pack of Weightwatchers Nacho Cheese Flavour Tortilla Chips, you flabby oaf? B*witched's self-titled album, you tin-eared ninnymuggins? Perhaps some Oxy Emergency Zit Blitz Pads, you crater-faced pultroon? Those things are all a pound each - Slammer is less than a pound. Very few things are less than a pound these days (I blame Thatcher), let alone quality entertainment. So you shouldn't just go and purchase Slammer, you should get down on your knees and be fucking thankful that a powerhouse like Guthrie is allowing you to have his work for such a rock-bottom price. Go buy.

So there you go, 10 good reasons to buy Slammer. If I haven't convinced you with my mighty list, then you're obviously some kind of subnormal who's stumbled across this website in your quest for Macaroni Dog. In which case, see the link and then go and buy the book as payment for services rendered.

* Link redacted. You know who they are. Stop buying their books. They don't love you and they never will. They hate you. They think you're a moron, which is better than being an imbecile or an idiot, but still nothing to put on your passport. Besides, you're not a moron. You're lovely and you smell nice most of the time.

** My own books are exceptions to the rule. Also, I have been known to sign false names into other people's books, so if you pick up a copy of Being Jordan and come face-to-face with a profane personalisation that may or may not allude to a certain Tijuana donkey show, then there's a good chance it's me. That, or Katie's chosen to spill the beans herself. Ahem.