Indecent Acts

An extraordinary achievement and change of direction for Brooks, in this, his third novel. Reported entirely by the protagonist, Grace, a semi-illiterate 40-something mother from Drumchapel, one of Glasgow’s most notorious schemes, this is a story soaked in humour and empathy as we follow Grace’s attempts to hold together her precarious, chaotic family life. Grace cares for Sean, her grandson, and Vincent, her son, who wants to join the army. She lives in fear that Francis, her drug-addicted daughter and mother to Sean, will come back and take the boy away. In the spirit of The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, the novel is written in Grace’s inimitable misspelt patois, with hilarious and moving effect. Indecent Acts is a glorious exploration of ‘real’ working class life, of family ties and tensions, memory, riotous misadventure and ultimate redemption.