O Brother

“The Scottish novelist and screenwriter John Niven—perhaps best known for cult favourite, Kill Your Friends—has just released a searingly honest account of his fraught relationship with his charismatic younger brother Gary, who took his own life in 2010. Their lives began in tandem and then diverged; while John made his way in the music business, and later as a writer, Gary worked manual jobs and dealt drugs in the small town they grew up in. But what might have been a grim story of descent, recrimination, and despair is, in Niven’s hands, a moving and even exuberant story that reflects the chaotic energy of their brother and the dark humour that he and his sister Linda forge from an otherwise harrowing situation.” Read more...

Notable Memoirs of 2023

Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor