Toy Fights: A Boyhood - 'A classic of its kind' William Boyd (Paperback) - Don Paterson

A future classic of memoir by one of the greatest writers at work today

'A classic of its kind.' William Boyd
'Thought-provoking, hilarious, sardonic and scarily brilliant.' Scotsman
'A work of dazzling craft.' Times Literary Supplement
'A memoir in a million.' Sunday Times

** Chosen as a Time Book of the Year **

Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1963. He spent his boyhood on a council housing estate.

When he wasn't busy dreading his birthdays, dodging kids who wanted to kill him in a game of toy fights,
working with his country-and-western singer dad, obsessing over God, origami, sex or Scottish football cards, he was developing a sugar addiction, playing guitar and descending into madness.

While he didn't manage to figure out who he was meant to be, the first twenty years of his life - before he took a chance, packed his guitar and boarded a train to London - did, for better or worse, shape who he would become

'A book that swan-dives into the filthy waters of growing up and resurfaces clear-eyed, bearing pearls.' Financial Times
'Paterson is arguably Scotland's finest writer at work today, his sense of the absurd is acutely honed, his wisdom hard-won.' The National
'Wonderful, aggressively wise and always - especially at its most serious - devastatingly funny.' Geoff Dyer

About the Author

Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, all three Forward Prizes and, on two occasions, the T. S. Eliot Prize. He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2009. He was Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews and, for over twenty-five years, was Poetry Editor at Picador. He also works as a jazz musician.