Born Free

Punchy, acerbic, sharp-witted and above-all, acutely observed, Born Free tells the story of an ordinary family who are all trying to escape from something – and each other. The interactions between Jake, Joni, Angie and Vic reveal a hellish cocktail of asdolescent and mid-life crises; the savagery of sibling rivalry; the waking nightmare of a marriage gone cold – and, naturally, the unbridgeable, infernal chasm between the generations. It’s a story of everyday life. It is shortlisted for the Whitbread first novel award 2000 Book Of The Year – the face ’99 nominated for the Orange prize.

Reviews of Born Free

* The writing is of a high quality and puts across a powerful sense of claustrophobia and quiet desperation. The Observer * It's desperately readable, blackly comic and painful, a delight born of dysfunction. The Times * Born Free confirms Laura Hird as one of Scotland's most talented writers. This bleak tale of urban dismay, set in the badlands of Edinburgh, is a work of considerable force and maturity – Hird organises her material with confidence and style – The novel's final 50 pages are a memorable descent into the dark mires of the human spirit, yet the book ends with a spark of optimism. Daily Telegraph * Born Free exhibits a maturity that suggests Hird has emerged from the coat-tails of her peers and has ceased to play the literary wee sister – she manages to carry things off with aplomb – Hird's portrayal of a woman in alcoholic free-fall is uncomfortably accurate – shifts with ease from the screamingly funny to the gut-wrenching – thought provoking and entertaining. The Scotsman