Product Description

Gary Irvine is pretty happy in Ardgirvan, a small town on Scotland's west coast. Only two things would improve his life - children and a lower golf handicap. Both are unlikely. The former because Gary's wife Pauline is intent on leaving him as soon as she's snared Findlay Masterson, the self-made carpet millionaire she's set her sights on. And the latter because, frankly, Gary is an appalling golfer. Far away from the world of golf handicaps, down in the murky depths of Ardgirvan's criminal underclass, Gary's hapless brother Lee is stumbling from one botched drug deal to another, his orbit drawing terrifyingly close to local crime overlord Ranta Campbell. Then Gary gets smashed on the head by a golf ball and knocked into a coma. He wakes to find that the neurological trauma he's suffered has resulted in some pretty radical side effects - among them an absolutely perfect golf swing. He wins his local club championship. He breaks the course record. He qualifies for the Open ...Meanwhile Pauline and Masterson have hit upon a plan to help him avoid a ruinously expensive divorce. It's the kind of plan that ends with a funeral. Their stories converge as the two brothers stumble into uncharted territory - Lee towards murder and Gary teeing it up with his golfing hero, Calvin Linklater, the world number one, in the Open Championship ..."The Amateurs" is a hilarious examination of family and sport, of the ties that bind and how trying to put a little white ball in a hole can literally drive some men insane.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27835 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
`A novel about golf that is not only hilarious, but gripping, sexy, violent and outrageous ... Niven combines his increasingly bizarre plots, and some shocking behaviour, with considerable skill and, of course, large helpings of humour.' --Henry Sutton, The Mirror

From the Back Cover
From the author of Kill Your Friends comes another brilliantly realised and magnificently hilarious novel – a tale of infidelity, contract killing and ... golf.

Gary Irvine is pretty happy. Only two things would improve his life – children and a lower golf handicap. Both are unlikely. The former because Gary’s wife Pauline is intent on leaving him as soon as she’s snared Findlay Masterson, the self-made carpet millionaire she’s sleeping with … and the latter because, frankly, Gary is an appalling golfer.

Then Gary gets smashed on the head by a golf ball and knocked into a coma. He wakes to find that he’s developed Kluver-Bucy – a rare neurological condition that results in, amongst other things, bouts of public masturbation and Tourette’s syndrome. On the plus side, he now has the perfect golf swing. He wins the club championship. He breaks the course record. He qualifies for the Open. The fucking Open.

But Pauline and Masterson have hit upon a plan to avoid a ruinously expensive divorce. Findlay asks Ranta Campbell, an old friend and terrifying local crime overlord, to take care of it. Ranta’s son Alec figures a way to clear a business debt – he subcontracts the hit out to Gary’s hapless brother Lee who, after a botched drug deal, owes Ranta big time.

Both brothers stumble into uncharted territory – Lee towards the premeditated murder of an innocent woman, and Gary teeing up with his golfing hero, the world number one player, in the final stages of the Open Championship …

Praise for Kill Your Friends

‘Cripplingly funny’ The Times ‘Dazzling’ Time Out ‘Rollicking … Hysterical … Brilliant’ Matt Thorne, Independent on Sunday ‘Wonderfully nasty … Bed-wettingly funny … Awesome’ Doug Johnstone, The Scotsman ‘Brilliant … The best book ever written about the music industry’ Word Magazine ‘Brilliant’ Henry Sutton, The Mirror ‘Disturbingly funny’ Observer Music Monthly‘Wonderful’ Greil Marcus ‘Furiously, filthily funny’ Niall Griffiths ‘Brilliant’ India Knight ‘The most exciting British novel since Trainspotting’ Word Magazine ‘I couldn’t put it down’ James Dean Bradfield, the Manic Street Preachers

About the Author
John Niven was born in Irvine, Ayrshire. He has written for The Times, Independent, Word and FHM among other publications. He is also the author of the novella Music from Big Pink and the novel Kill Your Friends.

Customer Reviews

Hole in one
Don't read this book in a library or like i did on a plane. I can't remember the last time i laughed so hard, the poor girl sitting next to me wondered what the hell was going on. With tears streaming from my eyes i had to close the book and finish it in the comfort of my own home. If you are Scottish, like me, and a bad golfer, like me, then this is the book you've been waiting all your life for. Like Irvine Welsh at his best Niven writes about the "dark side" in a hilarious fashion. The seventeenth hole on the last day of the Open Championship will stay with me for the rest of my life. My jaws are still aching. BUY THIS BOOK. Brilliant.

Niven does it again
Quite unlike Kill Your Friends (Niven's scabrous debut about the music biz, a deliciously entertaining page-turner), The Amateurs is still an immensely lively read about a golf-obsessed amateur who miraculously makes it into the Open final. Highly recommended.

hilarious!
I'm 42, female & I don't like golf or even begin to understand it however, that did not detract from my enjoyment of this book in the slightest. This book is 'laugh out loud' funny. Ok, maybe a bit crude for some (I wouldn't let my 80 year old mother read it) - but still funny crude. It's also very sharply written & the characters are brilliantly observed. 'The Amateurs' is about a hell of a lot more than golf so don't let this put you off! Overall I thought it was a thoroughly enjoyable read which had me in stitches throughout.