Something Leather

Über

Something Leather is a novel-in-stories by Alasdair Gray which was published in 1990. Its framing narrative is the story of June's initiation into sado-masochistic activities by the female operators of a leather clothing shop in Glasgow.
The four central characters are from different social groups: June works for the civil service; Donalda is a dressmaker, and Senga her employer; and Harry is an aristocratic English artist and dominatrix. The novel also features a large cast of Glaswegian minor characters across a broad social spectrum, some of the segments reworked from Gray's earlier broadcast material.
Something Leather concludes with a section entitled Critic Fuel - An Epilogue, in which Gray describes the circumstances surrounding the book's development and offers an extended ending. He comments in the Acknowledgements that the title made reviewers treat it as "a sadomasochistic Lesbian adventure story" and that had he called it Glaswegians they might have paid more attention to the rest of the book.