Cover art by Mitch Miller

This Road is Red is a novel based on the stories told to me by people who lived and worked at Glasgow’s now demolished Red Road Flats. The book was commissioned by Glasgow Life as part of the Red Road Flats legacy project. It was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year award. Published by Luath Press, it can be bought here.

“In This Road Is Red, Alison Irvine does for Glasgow what Irvine Welsh has done for Edinburgh - imagining a city through its fringes, fearlessly and without frills. In fact, This Road Is Red goes one better than Trainspotting by bringing to life a whole scheme in the sky, not through the interconnected tales of a handful of individuals, but by opening a hundred windows onto a whole community across two generations, so that the reader can hear a town talking on every page.” Professor Willy Maley

“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...” The Herald

“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.” Undiscovered Scotland

“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.” The Socialist Review

“Irvine's stories are by turns sad, frightening, moving, dark, occasionally wickedly funny and always compelling.” The Morning Star