Little wonder Corrance's pictures caught Keenan's eye, depicting Glasgow as they do as a city that might be rough around the edges but is also full of "colour and character". His first two novels This Is Memorial Device and For The Good Times, he told the London Magazine's Robert Greer, are "places where reality itself feels as though it might be up for grabs". That much is also true of Boyhood's Glasgow - and its various other locations (including Paris and Mexico).
Reviewing the book for Buzz was a challenging if not impossible task: how to encapsulate its kaleidoscopic contents neatly in a couple of hundred words? In an interview with the Spinoff's Claire Mabey, Keenan argued that "prophetic books are books literally spoken out of the air", and it does feel with the fluid rush and gallop of Boyhood's prose that he's an amanuensis, frantically transcribing words and phrases dictated to him from the ether.
The reading experience reminded me of advice dispensed by a gorge-walking instructor a few years ago: take a leap of faith and surrender to the powerful and urgent force of the elements, allowing yourself to be swept along by the current. If you do, it's an exhilarating joyride.
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