A comedian, singer, composer, musician, linguist, actor, author and a favourite of Sean Connery and Billy Connolly's, Norman MacLean is a living legend in the Gaelic world and a household name across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Yet for all his creative genius Norman MacLean is virtually anonymous outside this ribbon of northern Scotland. His career has been etched with enormous highs and lows - a reflection of the turmoil of his private life, where a lifelong battle with alcohol has had a crippling effect on everything that he has touched, and which has arguably prevented him from achieving the global recognition that his undoubted talent so merited.

In The Leper's Bell, an erudite, analytical and frank autobiography of this wonderful, unique, but ultimately little-known star, Norman MacLean reveals the man behind the comedy and the crippling horrors of alcoholism. It is in turns tragic and uplifting, devastating and hilarious, elegant and heartbreaking, and one of the most compelling and moving memoirs to appear in recent years.