A Son of the Rock

Penguin, 1994, 181 p. First Published 1987. One of the 100 best Scottish Books.

Familiar to many people via the film version starring Robin Williams, this is the tale of an estranged father, a mostly unemployed actor, driven to distraction by his ex-wife’s cavalier approach to their children’s access visits, conceiving the idea of gaining the post of housekeeper in his old home by dressing up as effectively a Pantomime Dame. The book, though, is much more nuanced than was the film.

Even so, the parents are more or less continually at war and their children unwilling onlookers to the dispute. Each parent is as at fault as the other and the children are by far the wisest characters in the book which is well enough written, but sparely so, no doubt with a target young audience in mind.

The only reason I read it is because it is on that 100 Best Scottish Books list. However, I’m not sure it deserves to be.

Pedant’s corner:- curb (kerb,) “‘It was horrible. Horrible’” (is missing the full stop between . Horrible and the end quotation mark.