The Credit Draper

Synopsis

In 1911, eleven-year-old Avram Escovitz is shipped off to Scotland by his mother to escape conscription into the Russian Army. Growing up in the heart of the Kahn family in the tightly-knit Jewish community in the Glasgow Gorbals, Avram discovers he has a natural talent for playing football. He dreams of turning out for Celtic - but war intervenes. He is sent to work with his adopted uncle, the orthodox Jew Mendel Cohen, as a credit draper, peddling goods on credit to the crofters and villagers of the Western Highlands. There, a chance encounter with a Royal Flying Corps pilot leads to fresh possibilities: setting up a new business venture and winning the heart of a crofter girl. But shaking off his Jewish roots is not so simple..."The Credit Draper", a beautiful and original debut novel by J. David Simons, is more than just an immigrant's story about the search for identity in an alien land: it is also a book about whisky, football and waterproof clothing.