Unlikely Stories, Mostly

With his first collection of short fiction, Unlikely Stories, Mostly, Scottish artist and author Alasdair Gray perfected the blend of visual and verbal elements which has since characterised his work.The book’s dust jacket advertises the cocktail of surreal, macabre and mock-historical writing that readers will find between the covers. Title and author’s name are printed in bold roman type. Next to the author’s name is the image of an “improved duck” (a device invented by Vague McMenamy, protagonist of the story “The Crank that Made the Revolution”, to enhance duck mobility). Arranged around the lettering is a grid of black and white squares. In each one, a winged foetus nestles within the cross-section of a skull. A horizontal strip across the bottom shows a recumbent child attached to a kite, floating over a Chinese city in flames – an image echoed in the story “Five Letters from an Eastern Empire”. On the spine, a naked woman is the object of amorous attention from the legendary beast in the tale “The Comedy of the White Dog”.