Damian Barr’s new novel The Two Roberts is a much anticipated release here at BooksfromScotland. Ahead of its release we asked him about his favourite books.

The Two Roberts
By Damian Barr
Published by Canongate

The book as . . . memory. What is your first memory of books and reading?  

My mum taking me to John Menzies in Motherwell every Weds to get a new Mr Men book. Often I would pretend to be the Mr in question and she’d indulge me in being a square or ticklish or anything really. My Mum died last month and that was one of the last memories she shared with me.

The book as . . . your work. Tell us about your latest novel The Two Roberts. What did you want to explore in writing it? 

It’s a novel based on two real people: Robert (Bobby) MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun. They were working class boys from Ayrshire who met on their first day at Glasgow School of Art in 1933.  They were wildly talented and just wild, nicknamed MacBraque and McPicasso.  They became rich and famous then poor and infamous and now largely forgotten. They have become footnotes in the stories of their pals Bacon and Freud and Smart when they were the story! So I wanted to correct this and to imagine what it was like to be gay and Scottish and working class and trying to make your name as an artist in London before, during and just after the war. So much has changed and so little…It is, first and foremost, a love story. I want that for us.

The book as . . . inspiration. What is your favourite book that has informed how you see yourself?

The Colour Purple gave me the courage to write in the language I grew up hearing and to think of myself and my own story as having meaning and value.

The book as . . . an object. What is your favourite beautiful book?

I have a signed edition of The Colour Purple and it makes me happy to think Alice Walker held it in her hands.

The book as . . . a relationship. What is your favourite book that bonded you to someone else?

Easy. The memoirs of the late great Diana Athill made me think I had to meet her and then we became friends, a marriage of country house and council house. I miss her still. I encourage everyone to read her memoirs on publishing—Stet, they’re a scandal!

The book as . . . rebellion. What is your favourite book that felt like it revealed a secret truth to you?

A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White, who we miss already. Here was a teenage boy who felt like me about other teenage boys. WILD!

The book as . . . a destination. What is your favourite book set in a place unknown to you?  

Last Letters from Hav by Jan Morris. It is six months of travels in a country facing some sort of war or invasion. There are spies and a casino and it is all very glamorous but dark, if memory serves (and when does it). The only thing is, Hav is not a real country. Read this book and it wlil exist to you.

The book as . . . the future. What are you looking forward to reading next? 

Big Scottish Book Club is returning to BBC Scotland for a seventh series – the longest running arts show on the networks. Guests this series include John Niven, Rachel Kushner and Tash Aw—so all of them, really. What a treat!

The Two Roberts by Damian Barr is published by Canongate, priced £18.99.