Jock McLeish, failed husband, lover and businessman is alone in a hotel room, drinking whisky, fantasising about sex and contemplating suicide. As he tries to distance himself from reality, his lonely, alcohol-fuelled fantasies are interrupted by a flood of memories, reminding him of his own shortcomings.

An unforgettably imaginative book, deeply experimental in its form and charged with a dark humour, 1982, Janine is a searing portrait of male need and inadequacy. Gray’s exploration of politics, religion, powerlessness and pornography has lost none of its power to shock and entertain.