Paper Cup

I don’t think I’ve adored a book this much since Shuggie Bain. Set in Glasgow, Kelly is a homeless woman who encounters a chain of events that push her to go back to her hometown on a pilgrimage. The language is astonishing and I was completely captured by the way Kelly saw the city. The picture she paints of homelessness is stark and very realistic. This is the kind of book that when you finish, you actually miss the characters for a long time afterwards. Can’t recommend it enough.

As someone who has previously lived in Glasgow and who worked with homeless individuals in the city, I was immediately drawn to this book for obvious reasons.

I can often be critical of books which sentimentalise homelessness and poverty and give an impression of a lovely, wee community of people who are homeless but happy. I enjoyed this portrayal of the city of Glasgow and the descriptive realities that people who are homeless face on the street. The descriptions of the streets, the characters, the services available and staff who work within them were immediately recognisable to someone who has worked within this environment.

The language itself was also beautiful, incredibly realistic and will strike right at the heart of those who live in Scotland, particularly the West of Scotland. I am not sure how other non-natives may feel about it however I don't believe you would get an accurate portrayal of the story without it.

An excellent read from a very talented author I didn't know much about previously. I am now off to systematically go through her back catalogue!

Thanks to Netgalley and Canongate Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a brutally and beautifully raw read that is so honest and so gripping. It is well written with a heartbreaking storyline and well developed characters. I couldnt put this down and I will be thinking about this book and the characters for a long time to come.

I love the name of this book and I absolutely love the cover. The book itself is just as beautiful. It's a really stunning book, written in a really beautiful way. The characters are so vivid that you feel like you know them and you really want the best for them. Just wow. It is a story of how life can give you a massive bag full of lemons and how you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, find the beautiful things in life and find happiness in the small things in a journey that brings you back to knowing who you are and what things are truely important. It's really stunning.

Wow, this novel packs a real punch. Beautifully written and a well woven story. This is one that you’ll fly through and wonder where the time went. Kelly is a character that will stay with me for some time.

This is a Glasgow-eye view of life on the streets, featuring the gallus Kellie. Karen Campbell has a knack of bringing the lives and emotions of people from the margins of society to the fore and she has done it again with Paper Cup. My perception of refugees changed after I read “ This Is Where I Am” and now the spotlight has been turned onto homeless people. As Kellie herself cries, “ I’m a person! I’m a person, a person!”
Paper Cup is a Scottish masterpiece ; a beacon of compassion in our ever more self-centred world.

A young woman is drunk and lost, with sore feet and a potty stuck on her head. She’s on a bench on her own and she doesn’t know how she got there. This is the first chapter of this book and it draws you in from the start. I expected us to follow her, but instead we track her quiet companion on the bench, a homeless woman called Kelly who’s trying to keep warm under some cardboard and newspapers. Introducing us to Kelly through the hen party is a brilliant way of getting us to first see her as others see her, and then gradually getting to know her as she is as we join her on her philosophical and literal journey.

The narrative is a relatively simple one, but many layered and carefully placed so we understand why Kelly does what she does, at least in part. The initial description of her daily tasklist, to keep warm, to get some food, to try and be clean, is exhausting. She has bright spots of nearly but not quite friendship but for each of those there’re three tales of being beaten, abused and/or mocked by people who should be looking out for others, people going out of their way to make her tough existence a little bit worse. I am lucky, I have never felt the crushing worry of being safe and warm, I have a roof and food. I do not think that others are somehow responsible for this life, that they didn’t work hard enough or their actions caused it. We are all 3 pay packets away, on average, after all. Wear through the patience of family and friends and soon enough you’re out of options in all but state support, and as we know, this is few and far between. It’s described in this book as not one net but a series of nets with big gaps to fall through, and some of this hopelessness is in Kelly’s telling of how she got where she is today. A series of unfortunate actions, some horrible people, her own pride - being told she has to be contactable without a phone or power, no access to computers and the ever present threat of ‘sanctions’ from an already meagre benefit.

A set of circumstances pushes Kelly to set off on a mission, of sorts, which sees her follow a pilgrimage trail in the South West of Scotland, setting out from her usual Glasgow spots. Along the way she meets good people, and not, and crucially she makes questionable decisions borne of necessity or driven by her inner demons. It’s a story of hopelessness and ultimately, the humanity that binds us together and keeps that hope alive. It’s also funny - the other characters are sharp witted and dry and there’s a gallows humour which keeps it from being too depressing.

I was rooting for Kelly, along with the people rooting for her whether she knew it or not. It’s so beautifully written and so specifically Scottish, with a smattering of Scots language, that it felt like home. It’s funny, and painful, and poignant and so compassionate. It might be a work of fiction but we all know Kelly. We’ve seen her, or him, sitting outside on the pavement with their paper cup, asking for nothing but 20p and possibly a sandwich. In this world, in 2022, this shouldn’t be happening but it still is - this series of nets lets people slip through. If nothing else, this book casts a light into that shadow and will hopefully encourage readers to volunteer, to add to that cup, to see that person as a person.

Recommended for anyone looking for a story about compassion, about the family you make rather than the one you’re born into. Adjacent to Shuggie Bain with a bit of Trainspotting thrown in.

Thanks to Netgalley and to Canongate books for the DRC. This is available to buy June 2nd 2022 - preorder now!

Absolutely brilliant book. The descriptive writing, the character development, the chosen family, the journeys, the little side stories, the portrayal of addiction and homelessness and shame and hope, the portrayal of life. All of it is exquisitely and compassionately written. I read it in 2 sittings because I just couldn't stop joining Kelly on her journey. I think I'll be thinking about this book for a long while.

Thank you to Canongate and NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.