A Working Class State of Mind

Written entirely in East coast Scots A Working Class State of Mind, the debut book by Colin Burnett, brings the everyday reality and language of life in Scotland to the surface.

Colin's fiction takes themes in the social sciences and animates them in vivid ethnographic portrayals of what it means to be working class in Scotland today.

In A Working Class State of Mind, Colin Burnett gives voice to the bruised, hilarious, furious, and tender lives of working-class Scotland. Burnett writes in a raw Scots vernacular that crackles with insult, poetry, pain and defiant humour. From Leith betting shops to cold flats, theatre halls, family battlegrounds and streets where hope is always hard-won, these stories stare poverty, class contempt, addiction, pride and despair straight in the face - then answer back with laughter.

This is fiction with its fists up and its heart exposed: comic, confrontational, compassionate, and alive to the absurd dignity of people too often written off. A fierce collection for readers of contemporary Scottish fiction, social realism, dark comedy and voices that refuse to be polished smooth.

'Fabulous book. Colin is a great writer, and the characters are so believable. I couldn't put it down.'

JANEY GODLEY

'Colin Burnett's novel written entirely in East-coast Scots, A Working Class State of Mind, is lucid, fast, funny, hard, twisty, comical, brutal, benign, happily cheeky, and so linguistically erratic that the nature of being erratic quickly becomes an incontrovertible virtue - the reader is just wheeched alang ithoot devaul or even mercy - when's the sequel?'

PROFESSOR ALAN RIACH, Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow

"Telt in his ain Embra Scots, Colin's chairacters' lifes spairkle wi the language o thaim thit belang tae the toon."

DR MICHAEL DEMPSTER, Scots Scriever

"Burnett will no doubt be hoping that loveable psycho Aldo might become the new Begbie, a character burned into the Scottish psyche. With Burnett's hardman character also striking first and asking questions later."

Edinburgh Evening News

"A glimpse into working-class life in Leith in all its shades and kaleidoscopes. This is Burnett's first book and he has talent, a rare voice and way with characters which is compelling and at times spellbinding. One to watch for in future."

Gerry Hassan, Author and Commentator

"This honest, often gritty account of working-class life is full of dark humour and tales of perseverance through hard times. Fans of Irvine Welsh and James Kelman will enjoy this new and exciting young author."

Alasdair Peoples, Visit Scotland

There are obvious influences of Welsh, Kelman and perhaps Warner too in this compelling debut collection, and like these mentors, Burnett brings what feels like lived experience to his writing. His protagonists are full of life in all their frightening brutality, dark humour and ultimate humanity and it is the sheer believability of them and their exploits that places this fresh new voice in Scottish working-class literature at the top of the ever-blossoming tree."

Loretta Mulholland, Into Creative

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Leamington Books
Published: 06/01/2026
ISBN: 9781914090158
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.48lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.40w x 0.52d