Alasdair Gray's close friend to release new book on iconic author

“That’ll mean nothing to the younger generation these days,” she tells the Sunday National.

Hooper was Gray’s confidant and friend for more than 35 years, having first met at a party where the author drew her in the back of the phone book.

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Gray died in 2019 and Hooper is about to release a new book reflecting on all the years she knew him.

A chance meeting

IT'S fitting that Hooper meets with the Sunday National at Òran Mór. Not only is Gray's face one of the many portraits which line the walls, he’s also responsible for the iconic mural in the auditorium.

The pair’s friendship started around 1981 and, all these years later, it’s still a vivid memory for Hooper.

“I was going through a difficult divorce but was invited to a party with Alasdair and he asked if he could draw me.

May Hooper has written a new book about Alasdair Gray (Image: Supplied)

“I was taken aback but I was flattered as well, I used to be young,” she says, smiling.

“He didn’t have a pen, he didn’t have a paper but he was determined to draw me. The host said to him ‘I’ve got the Yellow Pages, so you can use the back cover to draw me on there'.

“So what I’ve said in the book is that you could say he found me in the Yellow Pages.”

“Over the years, our friendship really flourished. There wasn’t a lot he didn’t know about me and me him.”

The pair would go eventually become neighbours and Hooper’s new book – Loving Alasdair: The 39 Years of My Life with Alasdair Gray – will be released this autumn.

Looking back, she describes Gray as “very compartmentalised,” and that he liked focusing as much on his art as he did his writing.

“I think at times he maybe preferred painting but he was a better sketcher in my opinion,” she says.

“Quite often, the writing would get the better of him with the deadlines so he’d relax and draw.

“He was a pathologically hard worker, didn’t like letting anyone down even if his deadlines were late.”

Catalyst for writing

WHILE Hooper says she’s always enjoyed writing, it’s never been a full-time career. She worked as a nurse before going into social work.

Perhaps unsurprisingly though, she always found encouragement from her friend.

“I liked writing and Alasdair encouraged me. I used to run a carers group at night and I would do a monthly newsletter and he’d sometimes edit that for me.

“He encouraged me to paint as well but I felt like I paled beside him, a bit insignificant. His talent was quite huge and I kind of underestimated myself. I think you do that when you know someone so well and know what they’re capable of.”

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Hooper started writing her book before Alasdair died and says he was “very supportive” of her doing so.

Understandably, she pauses slightly when looking back as she admits the book went through some changes following the author’s death.

“I never found the time to finish it before then as I was looking after my dying mother,” she says.

Looking back on his death, Hooper said: “He’d been ill so often, there was a bit of me that thought he wasn’t going to die.

“I became distraught, bereft and couldn’t really write again for about a year. It affected me more than most people know.

“They don’t know how close we were. I cried quite a lot. To be frank, when I got the first proof, I cried reading that.

“Even about six weeks ago, I re-read the ending and it was breaking my heart.”

Reflecting on Poor Things

GRAY'S 1992 novel Poor Things found new levels of fame last year when it was adapted for the big screen.

Winning four Oscars, and picking up a total of 11 nominations, Yorgos Lanthimos’s work was considered one of the top films of the year.

It didn’t come without controversy, however, facing questions over its omission of the novel’s Glasgow setting.

Even Lanthimos himself admitted in an interview with Little White Lies he wasn't certain Gray would be too happy about the decision.

Emma Stone starred in the Poor Things adaptation (Image: Searchlight Pictures)

Hooper is keen to stress that she enjoyed the film, believing that Lanthimos is a “genius” while simultaneously pointing out that “it wasn’t the book”.

“In the book, what is implicit became explicit in the film,” she says.

“I loved the film. I just felt they went a bit overboard. I felt the focus was on the sexual aspects, maybe that’s because sex sells.”

It’s impossible to tell what Gray - who did meet Lanthimos before production started - would have made of the film but Hooper does give some idea.

“Had he been alive, yes he would have been happy it was a film, but he wouldn’t have been happy about the Glasgow-centricity being knocked off.

“It’s a Glasgow-centric book and given the film was quite surreal, a backdrop could quite easily have been Glasgow. I never understood why they chose London.

“It kind of hurt to watch that, although I loved the film, it didn’t notice Glasgow. I’m not really sure we can compare it to the book and that happens a lot.”

With the success of Poor Things, are there any other works by Gray she thinks are ripe for adaptation?

Although Hooper concedes Lanark might not quite be possible, she believes 1982, Janine, a sexually explicit novel narrated by the character of Jock McLeish, might be worth trying.

“The screenwriter would have to soften that I think,” she says.

“It’s quite sexual so it’s the kind of thing I suppose people go to see. But [Gray’s] prose is so fantastic, it’s so well written.

“I don’t know how it could be adapted, but then I thought that about Poor Things and the film was good.”

Looking back, if there’s one word Hooper could use to describe the time she knew Gray, it’s that she’s “grateful”.

“I have a lot of gratitude – I think that would be the word and I think he felt the same. I just really miss him such a lot. I was there for him, and he was there for me.”