Whitbread Award Winner: A Scottish miner fights for a better life for his son in this "intense, witty and beautifully wrought novel" (Daily Telegraph).

At the dawn of the twentieth century, newborn Conn Docherty, raw as a fresh wound, lies between his parents in their tenement room, with no birthright but a life's labor in the pits of his small town on the coast of Scotland. But the world is changing, and, lying next to him, Conn's father, Tam, has decided that his son's life will be different from his own…

Gritty, dark and tender, Docherty is a modern classic, "a serious, considered and achingly sympathetic engagement with the people whose only trace in historical record is birth and dead notices" (Scotsman).

"McIlvanney depicts the west of Scotland with a canny and ruthless insight."—Scotsman

"As a stylist Mr. McIlvanney leaves most of the competition far behind."—The New York Times Book Review