Just Go Down to the Road: A Memoir of Trouble and Travel

"In Just go down to the road, James Campbell, a native Glaswegian, recounts his years as an incipient juvenile delinquent (arrested for stealing books!) and his young adulthood spent "on the road" in the early 1970s. After dropping out of school at fifteen, Campbell struggled with family relations and factory work. Soon he threw it all off and went traveling--through Europe, the Near East, and North Africa. His was a bohemian existence; he got along by hitchhiking and trading work for shelter. In time, Campbell settled back in Scotland. Long a reader and writer, he began working for local magazines and attending University. His early encounters with well-known authors including John Fowles and James Baldwin set him on his true path, which took him to the position of long-time writer of the NB column for the Times Literary Supplement. Just go down to the road ends as Campbell gets his first book deal, and, after an unlikely start and unorthodox education, begins to find his place in the world of literature."--Page 4 of cover.