The Two Roberts

Barr proves that Glasgow has many stories to tell. A funny, charming book that crackles with creative rebellion. It is a pleasure to read and there is real joy in discovering the forgotten history of these working-class antiheroes -- DOUGLAS STUART
The Roberts live once more! A brilliant and unflinching portrait of love and talent. Spending time in this world, so beautifully filled with detail and atmosphere, was a real pleasure -- GRAHAM NORTON
We need love stories like these. A stoater of a love story! The two Roberts take up residence in your heart. Utterly absorbing, Damian Barr has pulled off that very difficult thing, to make a historical novel totally contemporary. Yes, it is set in the past but the whole story is very Now. Brilliant -- JACKIE KAY
A warm, tender and attentive work - there are deep pleasures in its prose, world-building and sincerity of feeling -- SARAH PERRY
A novel that brims over with generosity and warmth -- ALEX PRESTON * * Observer * *
A full-blown treat, historical fiction that brings to life unjustly neglected figures of queer art . . . A Scottish love story -- PATRICK GALE
The Two Roberts is the greatest and truest story of two male lovers I have ever read. A masterpiece. The celebration of these men while staring down their every relentless failing is world class. What an act of the imagination! It's wonderful, beautiful, heartbreaking, inspiring, honest, true, vital and magnificent. They live, they love, they fight, they sing, they fight naked and drunk, this is truly a literary miracle to look at these men and create them anew with such love, but such a tough, cold eye too -- RUSSELL T DAVIES
The Two Roberts is beautiful! Beautiful writing. So vivid and alive and human and humane and funny and important! Tracing the line from Glasgow School of Art to London, art is as vital on every page as is the love, defiance, queer elegance and intelligence of the two artists this book honours. This is a truly great story penned by one of Scotland's finest writers, about two of our most extraordinary artists -- JENNI FAGAN
A truly affecting read. At once joyful and tender, raucous and tragic, it elevates the tale of two ordinary boys from Ayrshire into the grand adventure they deserve. A novel suffused with yearning and passion - for art, for life, and most of all, for love - it is a proper heartstopper of a book -- MARY PAULSON-ELLIS
Extraordinary. Barr is a gifted storyteller and a miraculous scene painter, exquisitely rendering such a pivotal, awful moment in our history, but there's beauty on every page. The Two Roberts has a huge beating human heart, written in delicate, funny, exacting prose so that it feels fresh and nuanced and entirely new -- CURTIS GARNER