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Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

ISBN: 9780862415518
Imprint: Canongate Classics
Publication Date: Sep 2002
Format: Paperback
Price: £5.99
Stock Status: in stock

In writing Just Duffy, a novel set amidst the urban decay of Lanarkshire, Robin Jenkins has created a modern-day Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Convinced of his own rectitude, Duffy declares war on society. Ridiculous, yet horrifying at the same time, his campaign builds to a terrifying conclusion. Beset with ambiguity, Duffy is a ferocious indictment of Calvinistic moral certainty, of a struggle for good which results only in evil and destruction. The deeply ironic title bears witness to the mismatch of Duffy’s aspiration against his own insignificance.

Robert Jenkins was born in Cambuslang in 1912 and spent his childhood in Lanarkshire. He graduated from Glasgow University in 1935 with an honours degree in English, before marrying in 1937 and working as a school teacher in Glasgow and Dunoon for a number of years. He has three children. His first novel, So Gaily Sings the Lark, was published in 1950, and twenty-three other books of fiction have followed, including a collection of short stories. Jenkins left Scotland for Afghanistan in 1957, teaching for three years in Kabul. From then until his retirement in 1968 he lived abroad, working for the British Institute in Barcelona and teaching in Sabah (North Borneo). He now lives in Dunoon.

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