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(1964– ), Scottish novelist and short‐story writer, born in Argyll. His acclaimed first novel, Morvern Callar (1995

It is alleged that 54-year-old Alan Warner went into the boy's western Sydney home on Monday and sexually assaulted the 13-year-old.

This article examines the use of the image of the abandoned church building in the \"contemporary British novel.\" It contends that novelists with a left-liberal political outlook employ the image of the abandoned church in order to represent, during the contemporary period, the situation of committed literature. The article proposes that such imagery in novels by Iain Sinclair, Julian Barnes, Alan Warner, and Anita Mason also signifies a reassessment of post-war individualism in favour of a 'communitarian turn' (Hutchinson's term) that seeks to reorientate the sympathies of readers towards collective values and institutions.

These works -- hovering mischievously on the edge of Nat-baiting -- still do not form a retrospective bolstering of the no case. The writers are unanimous about how dismal and regressive the unionist cause remains. One might argue that it is the very experience of the artist-as-yes-campaigner, with all that deep investment in optimism, which gives a weight to their critique of Scottish nationalism, an authority which the predictable snark of unionists will always lack. But while Scotland is clearly not as radical as artists had hoped, neither should we overstate Britain's claims on the collective imagination. Scottish cultural nationalism was vindicated, not disproven, during the referendum. Blair McDougall, leader of the no campaign, has admitted that they fought on the terrain of the economy because polling told them they could not project a positive Britishness and succeed. As such, Better Together's visual branding was bedecked with saltires, not union jacks, and their rhetoric appealed to patriotism: if you love Scotland then save it from Alex Salmond. A second existential crisis has hovered into view since then, with the continuing electoral ascent of the SNP. As the academic Scott Hames has explained, \" politics has caught up with Scottish culture \", which by default aligns pro-indy artists with the government in Holyrood. This proximity has forced many of us into an uncomfortable dance from foot to foot: supporting the SNP against a corrupt British state and defending it from unionist attacks, while wary about the party's \"left\" credentials and power to dominate the yes movement.

These works -- hovering mischievously on the edge of Nat-baiting -- still do not form a retrospective bolstering of the no case. The writers are unanimous about how dismal and regressive the unionist cause remains. One might argue that it is the very experience of the artist-as-yes-campaigner, with all that deep investment in optimism, which gives a weight to their critique of Scottish nationalism, an authority which the predictable snark of unionists will always lack. But while Scotland is clearly not as radical as artists had hoped, neither should we overstate Britain's claims on the collective imagination. Scottish cultural nationalism was vindicated, not disproven, during the referendum. Blair McDougall, leader of the no campaign, has admitted that they fought on the terrain of the economy because polling told them they could not project a positive Britishness and succeed. As such, Better Together's visual branding was bedecked with saltires, not union jacks, and their rhetoric appealed to patriotism: if you love Scotland then save it from Alex Salmond. A second existential crisis has hovered into view since then, with the continuing electoral ascent of the SNP. As the academic Scott Hames has explained, \" politics has caught up with Scottish culture \", which by default aligns pro-indy artists with the government in Holyrood. This proximity has forced many of us into an uncomfortable dance from foot to foot: supporting the SNP against a corrupt British state and defending it from unionist attacks, while wary about the party's \"left\" credentials and power to dominate the yes movement.

It has long been the custom that any journalistic profile of [Alan Warner] must be laced with hard liquor. Since the publication of his first novel, Morvern Callar, in 1995, through to that of his last, 2012's The Deadman's Pedal, most interviews have taken place in the pub. \"I don't drink as much as I used to,\" he says, a few sips into a rum and Coke. \"Ten years ago, you would've had to have put up with me banging on all day.\" There has been no great awakening, more a general softening. \"I just got older,\" he says. \"I had a lucky escape because I slowly grew out of it.\" Warner is struck by how conventional this novel is. \"Much more so than anything I've done,\" he says. \"It's also much more of a first novel than Morvern Callar, as if I decided to do a first novel eight novels in.\" He describes Morvern Callar, the story of a young woman who disposes of her dead boyfriend's body and publishes the manuscript of his novel under her own name, as \"this cleverly disguised, bitter first novel\". \"And then I thought, now I've got a female narrator,\" he frowns, \"and that will throw up a few things as well - but I just kind of worked my way through it like you would with any character.\" But it was liberating, he agrees. \"Oh yeah. But I was very, very uncomfortable and nervous about it - I didn't think it was convincing. I thought the rhythm was very strange. I didn't think it was any good. And I didn't show it to anyone.\"

At length, our antiheroes manage to arrange a meeting with a publisher, Toby Hanson, who first appears donning suede gloves and \"what looked like a cashmere overcoat\", and complaining furiously that he has been dropped from the next edition of Debrett's People of Today. [Douglas] and [Lou] end up working for him on a cats-with-captions calendar, which form of writing \"could easily be conducted in the pub\", though not without a certain inexorable decline in quality. \"Towards the end of drinking and captioning, [Lou] just became obscure: Marcus Aurelius snipped my claws. Or, The use of shadow in Japanese art is declining.\" Setting the scene in their flat early on, Douglas describes it out loud as \"Look Back in Anger with digital watches\". This may be a deliberate misdirection, since for much of the novel, we are more in the realm of a bookish Withnail & I. Lou is the irrepressibly stagey dipsomaniac who insists on his literary opinions, marks the impressive words he will use in his novel in a two-volume OED, or declaims, to a supermarket butcher offering them some mince on special offer: \"No, thank you. Concerning our cuisine, we have long ago concluded that porridge and pasta are the staple dishes best suited to our economic and social aspirations.\" Yet Lou also despises his bride, which Douglas evidently doesn't, and the atmosphere gradually grows thicker and darker until nothing is left, in a striking image at a narrative crisis point, but \"waste light\":

Make sure your answer flows by using phrases such as 'also', 'furthermore', 'nonetheless', 'on the other hand', 'clearly' etc. Don't use the same phrase twice. [Alan Warner], a novelist, chose to write about the influence of pop music on his work. He claims it is difficult to assess this influence as pop music is ever present in our lives, 'ubiquitous', like the weather. He admits to being a huge fan of music but states that he only uses musical references in his novels if they are needed as part of the plot: 'I would only reference music on the page if it served some narrative function'. He won't reference songs just for the sake of it. The second point he makes is that it is risky to listen to music while writing as it can trick the writer into thinking they're writing something brilliant when they're not! 'The moving, dynamic power of great pop songs can soon fool you into believing what you are writing is also dynamic and emotionally powerful.' He also addresses the emotional links we make with music, how 'our young hearts come alive' to it. He seems to put a lot of work into building 'the emotional architecture' of his characters and states that just picking a random selection of pop songs 'for effect' would not do them justice.

Adapted from Scottish author Alan Warner's novel The Sopranos by Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall and former National Theatre of Scotland director Vicky Featherstone, there's little doubt Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour is the feel-good stage musical of the year.