Don Paterson & Declan Ryan: Toy Fights

In Toy Fights (Faber) poet Don Paterson recounts his childhood in working-class Dundee. This is a book about family, money and music but also about schizophrenia, hell, narcissists, debt and the working class, anger, swearing, drugs, books, football, love, origami, the peculiar insanity of Dundee, sugar, religious mania, the sexual excesses of the Scottish club band scene and, more generally, the lengths we go to not to be bored. ‘A tremendously engaging memoir’ writes William Boyd, ‘seasoned with Don Paterson's customary wit, total recall and love of language. A classic of its kind.’

Paterson was in conversation with poet Declan Ryan whose whose debut collection, Crisis Actor, will be published by Faber in July.