SOURCE: "Eyeless and Legless in Glasgow," in The Spectator, Vol. 272, No. 8647, April 2, 1994, pp. 33-4.

[In the review below, Jacobs provides an unfavorable assessment of How Late It Was, How Late.]

[How Late It was, How Late] is not reader-friendly. Its 374 pages are not divided into parts or chapters. The only intervals in the text at which to take a much needed breather are infrequent double spaces between paragraphs, which mostly end with full stops, but sometimes don't.

Not that this joined up format is inappropriate, for we are in stream-of-consciousness country here. Sammy is a Glaswegian in his thirties with a long stretch in prison and some shorter stretches labouring on building sites behind him. He is currently living off social security, plus whatever else he can lay his hands on, including the flat of a girlfriend called Helen who is continuously expected but fails to show up...