Heinemann, 2021, 344 p.
The book examines the history of No 10 Luckenbooth Close, Edinburgh, via various of its inhabitants through the years; Jessie Macrae who lived in flat 1F1 in 1910, Flora in 2F2 in 1929, Levi in 3F3 in 1939, Ivy Proudfoot in 4F4 in 1944, Agnes Campbell in 5F5 in 1956, William Burroughs in 6F6 in 1963, Bee in 7F7 in 1977, Ivor in 8F8 in 1989, Dot in 9F9 in 1999.
Written with many short sentences, sometimes only two words long, weirdness is a characteristic from the off. Jessie is the recently deceased Devil’s daughter, sold by him to the house’s owner, Mr Udnam, to be a surrogate mother for the child his wife cannot have. On her father’s death, Jessie started to grow buds on her head and eventually sports a magnificent pair of horns – not to mention cloven hooves. This aspect of the novel is another illustration of the Scottish literary tradition of meetings with the Devil but here with an unusual twist.
Jessie’s presence haunts the house for the rest of the book – as does that of Elise, Udnam’s wife, and her five sisters, all of whom he has had killed, along with the child. Despite this Udnam is on the outside an upright citizen, rewarded by the city for his contributions to civic life.
The book is structured in three Parts. Its nine viewpoint characters each get three non-sequential chapters to him- or herself within the relevant Part of the book.
It is also a potted history of Edinburgh. Levi (a black man from the US) writes to his friend Leo, “There are two cities in Edinburgh. There is one above ground and one below, one in the centre and another on the outskirts … the Edinburgh that is presented to tourists. Then the other one, which is considered to be the real Edinburgh, to the people who live here ….. All fur coat and nae knickers,” that last a phrase the postman taught him. He adds, “ideology is sold to us as a fixed thing that everything is based upon … but they are all just based on ideas. And those ideas were created so people could find a way to control billions of other people … a way to profit, a way to order society, a way to warehouse humans,” and, “there are no different races of humans; there are only humans and we are all made from stardust every single one of us,” plus reflecting on religion, “there is no god wants murder in their name. Not a single one. Humans made that up to compensate for our own bloodlust, to sanctify it, to make it holy,” and society, “men with money pay poor men to hold guns up to other poor men or women to keep all of us in line.”
Feminist Ivy Proudfoot, who seems to believe she has been recruited to do undercover work in Occupied France, asks, “Why is it that young men who kill are heroes but a young woman who has the urge to do so is reviled?”
The William Burroughs in flat 6F6 in the 1960s is the writer; cut-ups litter his floor. He tells his Scottish lover that we are programmed by language and calls himself a word traveller, commenting on the relationship between writer and reader and what they conjure up between them. His aside about his lover’s attitude to the English, “You blame everything on them,” receives the reply, “They’ve a lot to answer for.”
Bee’s menace-dripping confrontation in 1977 with a group of Chinese gangsters is beautifully written.
The building is at one point described as a psychic vampire, it drinks human essence. Its dark secrets are revealed when it falls apart – consumed by decay and the tap, tap, tap of the death-watch beetle – on Hogmanay1999.
Luckenbooth (the word has two meanings: a lockable stall or workshop – there used to be a row of these standing opposite St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh’s High Street – and it is also a type of brooch) is not a novel for the faint-hearted but all the characters have the stuff of life. And death. A sticky blend of horror (tipping over at times into grand guignol,) heightened realism and social history, it is likely to remain long in the memory.
Pedant’s corner:- the state of being recumbent is always rendered in the text by the words ‘lay’ or ‘lays’ (it should be ‘lie’ or ‘lies’,) “a hand jive” (in 1933?) “numbers 0 through 9” (0 to 9, please,) sat (sitting, or seated,) a character mentions tights in the context of women’s legwear (in 1944?) “Each of the girls’ heads swivel toward him” (Each … swivels.) “‘She had outdrank everyone’” (outdrunk,) “he is put in the recovery position” (in 1944?) hoofs (in my youth this plural was always ‘hooves’,) “‘Hurricane’ by Neil Young” (it was Bob Dylan I believe.) “A swarm of …. flash by” (a swarm … flashes by,) sneakers (USian, in 1977 in Scotland they would have been called training shoes,) ammonic (ammoniac,) a reference to running electrical appliances to “run the figures down” to fool the meter reader (surely that ought to be ‘run the figures up’?) “My Little Ponyies” (My Little Ponies,) “with their smug pus’s” (pus’s as in plural of pus – ie a face. Pusses is obviously wrong; puses doesn’t look right either. We’ll have to go with pus’s then.) Knifes (Knives.)
