The Glasgow-centred work is written in a working-class Scottish dialect, and follows Sammy, a shoplifter and ex-convict.

Sammy awakens in a lane one morning after a two-day drinking binge, and gets into a fight with some plainclothes policemen, called in Glaswegian dialect "sodjers".

When he regains consciousness, he finds that he has been beaten severely and, he gradually realises, is completely blind.

This upsets Sammy and he leaves the Central Medical without finishing filing for dysfunctional benefits.

Sammy gets his neighbour, Boab, to call him a taxi to take him to the city centre.

Upset, Sammy walks to Glancy's bar—his favourite hang out—and is approached by his old friend Tam.

Eventually, Sammy agrees to take the money and meets with Peter and Keith at a nearby pub.

The book, amid some controversy, won the 1994 Booker Prize, making Kelman the first Scottish writer to win the award.

"[4] Simon Jenkins, a conservative columnist for The Times, called the award "literary vandalism".

[5] In his acceptance speech, Kelman countered the criticism and decried its basis as suspect, making the case for the culture and language of "indigenous" people outside London.

In a section on "Four-letter Words", Amis contests that "The thinning-out of spoken ribaldry" is a bad thing for the worlds of literature, art, comedy, and culture.

At first sight, the case with the printed four-letter word is different, though here I detect a similarly unwelcome drift towards serious aesthetic purpose.