Helpful Score: 1
Wow! That is all I can say about this book. It took my breath away. Every other word is f**k, so you have to be able to get beyond that first, and I admit it took me a while. After that, the character never stoped making me wonder and laugh. Read this with an open mind, and the never failing optimism will knock you out.
The story of a fist-fighting, alcoholic ex-con named Sammy who is beaten senseless by Glasgow police and plunged into a netherworld of darkness. Blinded from his beating, Sammy wanders off into a Kafkaesque nightmare in which his girlfriend, with all good reason, abandons him, the police accuse him of unspecified crimes, and a doctor tries to convince him he is not really blind. Carrying a sawed-off broomstick for a blind man's cane, Sammy brings frantic, foul-mouthed illumination to his dark world, and stands as one of the most memorable and perversely honorable antiheroes to appear in modern fiction. Winner of the Booker Prize.