First edition (publ. Secker & Warburg)

Bucket of Tongues is a collection of twenty-three short stories by the Scottish writer Duncan McLean. Published in 1992, it was McLean's first book.

Cover

The front cover includes a quote by Janice Galloway:

Duncan MacLean has an uncomfortably clean eye, able to watch without flinching or passing judgement. He details the casual cruelty and absurdity, the daftness and awfulness of what passes for physical and verbal communication between folk, the kind of thing that is easier ignored or lumped under the inaccurate banner "unremarkable". This is lean, maggoty writing. More: it is subsersively funny.

Stories

1. "When God comes and gathers his jewels" - Unemployed couple; aftermath of a burglary.

2. "Cold kebab breakfast" - Drunken Christmas Eve celebrations and food.

3. "A/deen soccer thugs kill all visiting fans" - At the fish bar before the game.

4. "The big man that dropped dead" - Tale of a poet.

5. "The doubles" - Peter's bedroom crisis.

6. "After Guthrie's" - Ruminations about the pub, the Square, the town, a relationship, life.

7. "New Year" - David alone on New Year's Eve; noises outside.

8. "Headnip" - Worklife in the kitchen at Guddler's restaurant.

9. "Doubled up with pain" - An encounter.

10. "Bod is dead" - Buzby, a skateboarder, is furious.

11. "Bed of thistles" - Wedding reception shenanigans.

12. "Quality control"

13. "Hours of darkness"

14. "Three nasty stories"

15. "Thistle story"

16. "Lurch"

17. "Dying and being alive"

18. "Loaves and fishes, nah"

19. "The druids shite it, fail to show"

20. "Shoebox"

21. "Jesus fuckeroo"

22. "Tongue"

23. "Lucky to be alive"