Already, Too Late

About the Book: 

In post-war Glasgow a primary school class was set a composition topic: a memorable family event. Each child completed the assignment – all, that is, but one. 
Why didn’t you write about your family?
Please, miss. I didn’t, I didn’t know what to write.
But now, he does.

In Already, Too Late, Carl MacDougall, one of Scotland’s most accomplished and celebrated literary writers, presents a memoir of extraordinary authenticity and honesty.

This memoir takes us through MacDougall’s upbringing, both in and out of care on the west coast of Scotland, Fife, and industrial Glasgow, during the first decade of his life.

Within this world, now teetering on the brink of our collective memory, sits a single-parent household of German descent; money is tight, trauma roams free and tragedy comes calling again and again.

Through a powerful mosaic of stories, MacDougall strips away all rose-tinted sentimentality to create a vivid account of heartbreak, dissociation and loss.

Already, Too Late is the early life of an outsider looking in, a changeling child, displaced, alone, and – in his own grandmother’s words – ‘no right’. Because for some, even the very beginning is already too late.

Reviews: 

We had a visceral reaction to this book about children's agency... the characters are well written and acts of kindness and unkindness vividly drawn. SALTIRE SOCIETY SCOTLAND

Lyrical, richly detailed and full of gentle humour, Already, Too Late is a wonderful book. SUSAN FLOCKHART, The Herald

The book has the vitality and depth of fiction, the kind of fiction that, as we often say, is truer than fact. ALAN MASSIE, The Scotsman

In this extraordinary memoir, Carl MacDougall takes us through his upbringing… BOOKSFROMSCOTLAND

Carl MacDougall is a writer who means a lot to me, as he does to many others… [Already, Too Late] told in a manner which will be familiar to regular readers of MacDougall. Humourous, challenging, principled, quirky, verging on the surreal all with a mastery of language that was his alone. As with many of the best writers, Carl MacDougall had a keen eye for injustice and the absurd. Ensuing sentiment to get to the truth and even when turning that eye on his own young life, as he does here, he sticks to those principles. ALISTAIR BRAIDWOOD, Scots Whay Hae!

About the Author:

CARL MACDOUGALL was one of Scotland’s most celebrated writers. His work includes three prize-winning novels (Stone Over Water, Secker & Warburg 1989; The Lights Below, Secker and Warburg, 1993; The Casanova Papers, Secker & Warburg, 1996), four pamphlets and four collections of short stories and two works of non-fiction. He has edited four anthologies, including the bestselling The Devil and the Giro (Canongate, 1989). He has also written and presented two major television series on Scottish literature and language. His creative memoir Already, too late was published by Luath Press in 2023.