Pack Men

Alan Bissett

'That's why aw this-' Cage lifts his lager can, sweeps it round 180 degrees. '-means so much tay a man.'
The crowd stamps and claps, a hundred and fifty thousand voices blending into one.

In 2008 Glasgow Rangers FC reached a major European final. It was held in Manchester, a short hop from Scotland into England. Cue a colossal invasion: the largest movement of Scots over the border in history and the first time in hundreds of years that an English city was taken over. Chaos reigned.
Pack Men is the fictional story of three pals and one child trapped inside this powderkeg. In a city rocking with beer, brotherhood and sectarianism, the boys struggle to hold onto their friendship, as they turn on each other and the police turn on them. And somehow one of them has to disclose a secret which he knows the others won't want to hear...

With this novel, one of Scotland's leading young writers has created a scuffed comedy about male un-bonding and Britain unravelling.