Writing: "Alison Irvine is a new writer as pared-back, clear-eyed and direct a writer as has been working on her craft for years. Fresh, subtle, distinctive and haunting, she makes the everyday shine with a patina of wonder." Janice Galloway This Road is Red Reviews for This Road is Red The Herald Her book is publicised as a novel but plays with the conventions of non-fiction, including what appear to be direct testimonials of people who first lived in the flats when they were erected in 1964, to those at the end. It’s a combination that works well... Lesley McDowell Morning Star Irvine's stories are by turns sad, frightening, moving, dark, occasionally wickedly funny and always compelling. Full Review. Socialist Review This is a beautifully written tale of life in a high-rise housing scheme . . . Alison Irvine's first book is a fine tribute to the people of the Red Road and a great account of how human solidarity can prevail in even the bleakest circumstances. Full Review. Undiscovered Scotland It sounds odd to talk of a book providing an obituary for a housing scheme, but in many ways that is exactly what "This Road is Red" is doing: and in the process helping record a way of life that is about to disappear. Full Review.
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Background to This Road is Red  The first two blocks of Glasgow’s iconic Red Road Flats are being prepared for demolition. In 2009 Alison was commissioned by Glasgow Life and the Red Road Flats Cultural Project to write a book of stories about the flats’ residents from when they were first built in the 1960s to the present day. Surprising, haunting (literally!) and inspiring, the stories are based on interviews with tenants and ex tenants and capture the diversity of life within the flats over the last five decades. Her novel This Road is Red, was launched at Glasgow's Aye Write! literary festival in March 2011.Alison collaborated with artist Mitch Miller who illustrated the book. View a large version of one of the complex 'dialectograms' featured in the book. More about the Red Road Flats project  Images on this page: Red Road Flats (right) © Chris Upson |
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