An Edinburgh author has used his experience as an actor and journalist to create a tale about a man who once appeared as the front half of a camel, and his mother, who worked in Fleet Street as a top political correspondent.
Sons of Great Men, the debut novel by Adrian Ross, is a wry family story narrated by Victor, a sometime actor and pantomime dame, who battles his dyslexia to record his hospitalised mum’s memoirs.
“I didn’t pursue acting as a career, so this story is partly an exploration of what might have been,” says Adrian Ross. “I’ve tried to give it a funny-and-sad feel.”
The author has contributed to the New Writing Scotland anthology, The Reviews Hub website and Postbox, Scotland’s international short story magazine. He studied Drama and Film at the University of East Anglia, where he was a founding member of Minotaur Theatre Company. He worked as a newspaper sub-editor in London and South Wales, later becoming a manager in the arts and adult education.
Sons of Great Men is published in paperback on 1 March 2026. It’s available from all good bookshops and can be pre-ordered online.
