Her boyfriend said she was quirky but it was more than that. Some things were important. You had to fight for them. Only Helen wasn't as strong as people thought. She tried to be but didn't always succeed. Nobody does, not all the time.

Trust, love, relationships; parents, children, lovers; death, wealth and home. The ordinary stuff of life - but extraordinary too when you think about it. As Helen did, each waking hour, till that strangest of moments on the way home from work when this skinny down-at-heel guy crossed the road in front of her. Brian? Her long-lost brother? How could it be? But it was his shape, his very presence. Could it be?

So begins this twenty-four hours in the life of this ordinary young woman, as ordinary, as unique, as each and every one of us. Mo Said She Was Quirky - but there's more, much more, to Helen than that.

The Independent: Simon Kövesi

‘Brilliant… Kelman might just have written his most important novel yet.’

Herald Scotland: Alan Taylor

‘what is remarkable about Mo Said She Was Quirky is its gentleness, its compassion, its desire to understand, its art. This is not stream of consciousness as Joyce articulated it, or Virginia Woolf, but as only James Kelman can.