DISTANCE - Ewan’s second Novel - the story of a long distance relationship - was released on June 29th (Jonathan Cape)

The Times ****
“A writer of serious intent and prodigious talent…In lesser hands, the besotted dialogues and communications between Tom and Meg might begin to grate, but here the author makes them utterly compelling… On this form, Morrison is one of the finest novelists around”

The Sunday Telegraph ****
Top 50 Summer reads 2008.

The List. Camilla Pia ****
“Incredibly compelling reading…. an often overpowering, whirlwind romance peppered with hilarious, snappily rendered critiques… bittersweet anecdotes and, perhaps most interestingly, some searing attacks on and celebrations of modern Scotland. Morrison keeps the reader’s spirits up and gripped to every chapter with an abundance of witty lines, bittersweet anecdotes and an underlying sense of hope, which keeps Distance from becoming too sinister.”

Doug Johnstone, author, Tombstoning and The Ossians
“Distance is a remarkable, penetrating look at the nature of love, the psychology of sex and the role of delusion and fantasy in relationships.”

Arena
“The absorption of two lovers can make the reader feel like a gooseberry… Morrison leaves you aching for their reunion.”

The Daily Mirror
“A transatlantic romance is brilliantly stretched to breaking point… Secrets and lies mount on two continents, as a face-to-face confrontation inevitably looms.”

Independent: Jonathan Gibbs
“Morrison seems on the button with the mundane routines of long-distance love.”

Financial Times, Melissa McClements
“Morrison can be insightful…This, together with philosophical musings about the nature of affection, bring weight to bear”

Scotsman
“The much anticipated follow-up to Swung, takes off in a rush, a headlong dash, a slipstream of heat with the force of irresistible suction. Giddy, off-kilter and wholly absorbing, it features two lovers, besotted, reeking of lust and loss, in the wake of a week of powerful sexual-cum-psychological intrigues in New York City and beyond.”

‘ A writer of serious intent and prodigious talent. It’s not easy to write about passionate love, but Morrison is completely convincing in that respect. In lesser hands, the besotted dialogues and communications between Tom and Meg might begin to grate, but here the author makes them utterly compelling. Despite the pair constantly looking backwards to their week together, there is a relentless forward momentum to Distance, Morrison creating an insatiable desire to find out what happens when they finally meet up again. Morrison handles all this brilliantly, and his perfectly judged denouement is a blow to the head and heart. On this form, Morrison is one of the finest novelists around.’
The Times 28th June 2008

To read the entire review click below:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article4224803.ece

‘incredibly compelling …an often overpowering, whirlwind romance peppered with hilarious, snappily rendered critiques of [the lovers] hometowns and, perhaps most interestingly, some searing attacks on and celebrations of modern Scotland….even when all seems to be unravelling for his protagonists, Morrison keeps the reader???s spirits up and gripped to every chapter with an abundance of witty lines, bittersweet anecdotes and an underlying sense of hope.’
The List
see the full review here:

http://www.list.co.uk/article/9131-ewan-morrison-distance/

‘Distance is a remarkable, penetrating look at the nature of love, the psychology of sex and the role of delusion and fantasy in relationships. Heartbreaking in its depiction of self-destruction and desperation, it is an unflinching look at the train wreck that is the modern world. Swung was an amazing debut, Distance is considerably better, and Morrison is infuriatingly talented.’
Doug Johnstone. Author The Ossians

‘Morrison can be insightful, particularly when it comes to Tom???s self-defeatism. He also has a knowing awareness of the clichéd nature of his romantic theme. This, together with philosophical musings about the nature of affection bring weight to bear.’
Financial Times

‘The absorption of two lovers can make the reader feel like a gooseberry…Morrison leaves you aching for their reunion.’
Arena magazine

For more got to: http://www.princemaurice.com/press/pressrelease/CLPMPrize08Shortlist.pdf

ITALIAN IMPRINT OF SWUNG
On Feb 28th Swung comes out in Italy with the publishers Fazi Editore.

www.fazieditore.it

Keep an eye out for an essay by Ewan on Love in La Republica. and also a Q&A appearing in the forthcoming edition of italian womens magazine ‘Anna.’

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2061343,00.html

ARTICLES: WEEK - 7th to 14th April

THE SCOTSMAN. Saturday 7th April. Scottish Exclusive - cover story. Article on Ewan Morrison and swinging in Scotland. Lee Randal.
www.scotsman.com

http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=515012007

THE SUNDAY HERALD. Sunday 8th April. SULTAN OF SWING, Profile on Ewan Morrison. Peter Ross.
www.sundayherald.com

http://www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.1315049.0.sultan_of_swing.php

Interviews also appeared in THE BIG ISSUE and THE LIST

http://www.list.co.uk/

THE DAILY RECORD and THE BELFAST TELEGRAPH both picked up the Independent story WELL SWUNG (below) on Tusday 3rd April. The daily record ran it as cover story.

THE INDEPENDENT. 31st March 2007. Cover story. Diary of a swinger - The inside story of Britains Secret Sexual Revolution.

WELL SWUNG - ‘While working on a novel about swingers the acclaimed author Ewan Morrison spent a year exploring Britains secret Sexual Subculture. Twelve Months and many, many partners later, this is what he learned.

To read the article go to:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2405037.ece

ARENA MAGAZINE. MAY 2007. The controversy Issue. Sex stories by Britain’s hottest authors. p.162. HEAVEN - short story.

www.arenamagazine.co.uk

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Ewan Morrison’s first novel SWUNG (Jonathan Cape) was published on April 5^th 2007

PRAISE FOR SWUNG

“Sometimes - very rarely - a book is just so good that a string of gushing superlatives still seem to be damning it with feint praise. Swung is that kind of a novel, genuinely groundbreaking in its scope and insights, highlighting that its author is one of the most gifted and accomplished writers to have emerged in recent years”- Irvine Welsh

“That rare thing - a serious book about sex. Ewan Morrison’s brave, dirty utterly honest account of the psychological side of swinging is a complete delight.” - Matt Thorne

‘Undeniably erotic…the best book on sex since John Updike’s Couples’
ARENA

“Though sex is its language, this is a novel about ageing and settling and messing things up again, with heart enough to make it hurt a little”
Observer

“A racy romp… not for the faint of heart, this psychologically involving story certainly makes for an eye-opening read”
Easy Living Magazine

“as dirty a debut as Adam Thirlwell’s brilliant Politics…. And just as funny and thought-provoking”
Daily Sport

“Glasgow writer Ewan Morrison takes on the mantle of responsibility of writing a serious book about sex and carries it off with great success. It’s difficult to believe that Swung is his first novel.
It boasts a narrative control and sureness of touch… that would induce envy in many more experienced novelists… Swung is a beautifully crafted, completely realised and often inspirational book. It announces Morrison as one of the most interesting and exciting voices to emerge in Scottish
fiction in recent years.”
Guardian

‘Worryingly captivating’
Esquire

‘very impressive first novel’
Scotland on Sunday

“Ewan Morrison has a rare, enviable talent, like Vonnegut, like many of the best, he writes like he hates the world he lives in but sympathises with the people in it - no matter how many mistakes they make, how many people they hurt, how many times they almost give up. Despite being on one level a book about sex, Swung seems to me be more about how people cope with growing older and realising they won’t achieve the perfect life they once hoped for. It is as much a soft lament as an ecstatic howl.” - Rodge Glass. Author: No Fireworks

“The Self confessed ‘erudite purveyor of filth’ certainly knows how to make a buzz. With this novel about Glasgow swingers that sound should turn into a veritable cacophony.” - THE LIST Magazine

SWUNG OPTIONED BY SIGMA FILMS

Swung has been optioned by Gillian Berrie and (The Director) David Mackenzie’s independent Glasgow based production company Sigma Films. David’s new film Hallum Foe (another literary adaptation starring Jamie Bell) has just premiered to rapturous reviews at the Berlin Film Festival, and Red Road written and directed by Andrea Arnold and winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2006, was a recent Sigma Films production with Lars Von Trier’s Company. David Mackenzie’s first feature film was Young Adam (adapted from the novel by Alexander Trocchi and starring Ewan McGregor) The deal was handled by Lesley Thorne on behalf of Lucy Luck Associates.

“A mini masterpiece. I loved every story. Beautifully, wittily, ferociously and tenderly written. Fantastic.”
Chris Dolan, Author: Ascension Day

“The Last Book You Read and Other Stories’ skilfully evinces the spiritual desolation and desperation, the intense sexual parabolae, of life in the echo chamber that is advanced capitalist society. Yet sewn subtly through the fourteen stories linked narratives are the glistening threads of hope, connection… maybe even of love.”
Suhayl Saadi, Author: Psychoraag

“Although prominantly adorned with a blurb from the Sunday times designating it as ‘the most compelling Scottish literary debut since Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting’, Ewan Morrison’s The Last Book You Read could not be more different from Welsh’s debut both stylistically and thematically. What the texts do have in common is that both oscillate generically between constituting a novel and a collection of short stories, Trainspotting representing the former forever on the brink of irreparable self-dispersal, whereas Morrison’s narrative appears only minutely removed from aggregating into a larger whole. Similair to ambitious American film projects such as Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) or Paul Haggis’s Crash (2005)…Morrison is concerned with the indispensible necessity of personal relationships, the heroic effort it takes to initiate, trust and maintain them as well as the common everyday trials inherent in being generally human in our globalised twenty first-century world…undeniably Morrison’s collection of short stories makes a contribution to contemporary world literature.”

Bertold Shoene. Going Cosmopolitan: reconstituting Scottishness in post devolution criticism. From the forthcoming book: The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature.

May 2006. UNESCO City of Literature. Writers residency in Varuna, Australia in conjunction with Edinburgh City of Literature. A one month residency/ exchange. The Scottish writer Dilys Rose will also be resident.

March 2006. ARENA O2 Entrepreneur Awards 2006. March edition Arena magazine. One of four winning writers. “Author Ewan Morrison and Britain’s leading literary lights for 2006″

December 2005. First Novel SWUNG, bought by Jonathan Cape/Vintage. Publication date April 2007.

October 2005. Scottish Arts Council, literature Award. For second novel (in progress). THE ROAD (working title).

Praise for The Last Book You Read

“Set in Manhattan and Glasgow, these sleek, stylish and sexually explicit fables of modern anomie, mark the debut of Morrison - there is a complex and restless intelligence at work here, expressing compound thoughts in simple sentences that flow beautifully. It’s like someone you don’t know taking a disconcerting interest in you, putting their mouth so close to your ear you can feel their breath”
Jennie Renton. Sunday Herald.

“Scottish purveyor of erudite filth … you’re gonna love Ewan Morrison’s debut collection, The Last Book You Read.”
Arena

“Ewan Morrison’s debut is a collection of stories about anomie, cynicism, loneliness and sex . . . Male and female; straight, gay and bi; young and old; American and Scottish, they’re all looking for the same thing: a connection with someone, a new feeling. They’re vivid characters and their voices are all subtly different . . . Morrison leaves you some searing emotional passages and a handful of precious light moments.”
Laurence Phelan, Independent on Sunday (****)

“A brilliant collection of searing short stories - deeply poignant”
Richard Holloway. Cover Stories. BBC Radio Scotland

“Whereas (Michel) Faber’s versatility is a question of subject matter, Morrison excels in voice and form. Though he favors the monologue, some stories are told from three or four perspectives. Many manage to encapsulate entire lives and trajectories in the span of a few pages. His art can be seen at it’s finest in “Adagio”. The fragility and grief are in effective contrast to the bravado and true grit of Morrison’s customary narrative voice.”
Aamer Hussein. The Independent Arts & Books Review.

“In Scottish terms, it’s the most assured short story collection since AL Kennedy’s Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains and the most compelling Scottish literary debut since Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting. On an international level, it signals the emergence of a precocious literary talent - a heart-wrenching clutch of post-millennial fables”.
Sunday Times

“Ewan Morrison, whose The Last Book You Read includes stories set in New York and has already been compared to Douglas Coupland. This title heralds the launch of a new literary imprint by the Edinburgh-based publishers Black and White, and with a mesmerizing, no-holds-barred collection of short stories they have surely stolen a march on the kind of titles Canongate used to call its own.”
The Herald

“A confident and heartfelt selection of stories which flit between Scotland and America . . . Convincingly writing all ages and both sexes in the first person, Morrison equals the everyman patter of Irvine Welsh and the personable logic of Iain Banks. Yet there is also a precise mixture of the uncompromising and the tender that’s all his own, and a full-length debut novel will be eagerly anticipated.”
David Pollock, The List (****)

“Taut and direct, in the overtly masculine style of James Kelman or Charles Bukowski”
Laura Marney, The Scotsman

“Remarkably confident. An obvious influence is the work of short-story master Raymond Carver, which, as influences go, isn’t a bad one to have. Morrison has, however, poured enough of his own brand of creeping desolation into the scenarios to make these stories his own . . . There isn’t a duff story out of the 14 on offer, and there are at least a couple of exceptional ones . . . Scenes are often set with cinematic precision, and the dialogue bristles with energy. As debuts go, this is auspicious.”
Doug Johnstone, The Herald

“frankly manky”
Colin Waters, Sunday Herald

“fearless and touching short-story collection . . . masterly”
Lesley McDowell, The Herald

“Internet blind dates, a man who is penning The Adulterer’s Guide, a woman planning on seducing a friend’s husband; such fragile characters and more are featured in this rampant debut.”
The List (”Best Naughty Scottish Debut” from The Books Issue)

“Morrison’s narrative voice has the perfect level of confidence and the rawness of the emotions really stings - this book’s got soul!”
David Mackenzie, director of Young Adam

“A Scot finds his voice in America in these wonderfully assured stories.”
Bernard McLaverty

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/

Also I’ve a few posted BELOW.

Topics covered include - plastiscene model making in the 70’s - quitting smoking - neighbours who shag in the backgarden - fights at the reycling bins. etc x 45.

CLICK ON THE LINKS

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Ewan-Morrison-Weegie-bored.4139894.jp

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Ewan-Morrison-39After-a-cuff.4260558.jp

http://news.scotsman.com/12634/Ewan-Morrison-39I-shall-have.4210619.jp

http://news.scotsman.com/12634/Ewan-Morrison-39Most-bigbreasted-women.4095306.jp

Ewan Morrison: ‘Most big-breasted women I’ve known say their bosoms are, in fact, no fun’

Published Date:
18 May 2008
By Ewan Morrison
BOOBS are getting bigger. I kid you not. I could barely get my shopping done this week for being attacked by cleavage. At every corner huge chests were knocking me to the ground. I swear it’s not just the spring testosterone talking.
I was in the poultry aisle, and there was a woman, prodding away at chicken breasts, her own the size of Christmas turkeys. I escaped to the fruit and veg aisle, only to walk straight into two living watermelons. I almost screamed: “My God, ladies! Will you put them away!”

Is it the final demise of feminism? Millions of alienated women queuing up to get mega-Jordan implants, or stuffing silicone bags, known as ‘chicken fillets’, into their new Katie Price-branded bras? Is it all just fake or are birds really getting bigger?

For want of a pair of my own to measure I decided on some research. The facts are shocking. It’s not boob jobs that are to blame (only 10,000 in the UK last year). Surveys show that British jugs really are growing generation by generation. The average bra size is now 36C, up from 34B a decade ago. Marks & Spencer has just increased its range by three sizes to a J. And newer labels like Lejaby now go up to a mesmerising double J.

While this is good news for those of us who take a close and personal interest in such things, it must be bad news for the owners themselves.

Most big-breasted women I’ve known say their bosoms are, in fact, no fun. They complain of backache, nipple insensitivity, stretch marks, unwanted attention from leering pervs and the perpetual fear of the droop.

The growth, some scientists claim, is partly due to the general global slide into obesity. The real demon, though, seems to be environmental oestrogen pollution. It’s everywhere, but especially in the water system courtesy of decades of the contraceptive pill and HRT.

Then there are these scary things called xeno-oestrogens - chemicals that are found in everything from lipstick to tampons and spermicides. Other synthetic oestrogens are in the food chain. Battery chickens are pumped full of the stuff to give them - you guessed it - bigger breasts.

Who cares, I thought to myself. Why not just lie back and enjoy it all? Since scientists say we’re getting bigger in all things - brain size, height, longer life expectancy - maybe I’ll even gain an inch or two of manhood in my lifetime.

But fate is cruel. Studies in Germany have just revealed that penises are shrinking, with the average loss of half a centimetre in the past five years. Environmental oestrogen is again to blame. As the average chap is between 13cm and 15cm, if this yearly shrinkage continues, and the sperm count continues going down, then the end of the world could be closer than we think.

Where are we heading? Oestrogen consumption could go exponential, as women’s breasts become so large they are unable to move, and men fall into a constant state of arousal over so many reclining females, who they are nonetheless technically unable to satisfy. Suicide figures will rise as birth rates fall and chaps shrink.

Thinking about all this has destroyed my libido this week. Every time I see a bosom bouncing past, I think of battery chickens and of how the end is nigh. I shall be avoiding the poultry aisle from now on.

Ewan Morrison: ‘I pictured streetwise immigrants huddled round a bonfire that was once my bed’

Published Date:
04 May 2008
By Ewan Morrison
WHAT could be more humiliating than having the Salvation Army refuse the furniture you’ve donated to them, because it’s in “inferior condition”? Well, perhaps it’s pleading with the men in overalls as they head for the door, while trying to polish the surfaces with an old sock. “The scratches aren’t deep… and that’s just some dried-on soup, see!”
Worse still is being left alone with a fridge freezer, a double bed, a dining table, four chairs and a 1970s stereo, all sitting there defiantly as if saying: “Well, you’ve abused us for years, now you’re stuck with us! We refuse to be refuse!”

Okay, I have to admit, my motivation was not entirely charitable to start with. The idea of furthering the cause of God’s little helpers makes my skin crawl, but I was willing to indulge in a little ethical hypocrisy, given the trip to the tip they’d be saving me.

After the stunning rejection, however, there was only one choice left – dump it all on the street. It was a Thursday and my collection day is Wednesday, so the stuff would be sitting there another six days and the council could slam a fine on me, but I thought: “Fine! Bring it on.”

Two hours it took to lug all the stuff out, and I was so knackered afterwards that I took a wee nap, which turned into a full night’s sleep. Come morning, fear of arrest ran through my waking dreams. I ran outside to try to drag some stuff back inside before the council cops arrived. But to my amazement, all of it, bar the stereo, had gone. Whoosh! Saved by God knows who.

Later in the day the fairy godfather of refuse reusing reappeared. I watched from my window as a man of possibly Slavic origin with a white van stopped by the old stereo (and a few shelves I’d added), put the lot in the back and drove off. I imagined that the inside was brimming with CD players, futons and computer terminals, all rescued from the neighbourhood. I pictured scores of streetwise immigrants chilling out with my freezer or huddled round a bonfire that was once my bed. I was rather ironically redeemed. By my selfishness, I had done more social good than the Salvation Army.

As a result I have caught the reusing bug. All week I’ve been picking up things from the streets: a pine dresser from Maryhill Road is now in my bedroom; the kids have two scooters from a skip. I’ve also been scouring the ‘for free’ sections on websites like Gumtree.

A lava lamp from Bishopbriggs; pine shelving from Govan; a kitten and collection of stilettos in a size 10 from some very friendly gentleman in Edinburgh (I chose to decline his offer) – all free for collection.

Once you’ve got over the bourgeois fear of other people rummaging through your old things and you through theirs, reusing seems a truly radical way to live. There are some big ecological implications too: reusing is 99% energy efficient (1% is wasted in driving around) compared with recycling, which is estimated to be less than 20%.

Crushing, stripping and melting the parts of, say, a computer, for recycling creates a lot more toxic crap than giving it away to someone in need or leaving it on the street so it can find a new home. I’d like to thank the Salvation Army for teaching me that there’s an ‘F’ of a difference between refuse and reuse.

“Morrison’s debut short story collection, The Last Book You Read, is the subject of fevered hype on the international book fair circuit. The style magazine Arena has singled it out as the essential literary purchase of the summer. In Scottish terms, it’s the most assured short story collection since AL Kennedy’s Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains and the most compelling Scottish literary debut since Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting. On an international level, it signals the emergence of a precocious literary talent.”

Read the full Sunday Times article here