19 this year; 12 by men 7 by women, 4 with an SF/fantasy tinge (5 if you count Beloved,) 1 non-fiction, 1 fictionalised memoir. Not in any order; apart from of reading.

News of the Dead by James Robertson

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

Tomorrow by Chris Beckett

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Landmarks by Robert McFarlane

Toby’s Room by Pat Barker

Independent People by Halldór Laxness

Confessions by Jaume Cabré

Sparks of Bright Matter by Leeanne O’Donnell

Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor

Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson

Lizard Tails by Juan Marsé

Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé

Xstabeth by David Keenan

Borges and Me by Jay Parini

Beloved by Toni Morrison (review to appear here soon.)

Richard Drew, 1985, 326 p, including 2 p Foreword by Dairmid Gunn. First published 1949.

Archaeologist Simon Grant has been sent north to excavate a previously unexplored chambered cairn surrounded by a ring of stones on the land of Donald Martin. On the way to the site he comes across a mother and daughter sleeping curled up in the heather. These are Anna and Sheena, respectively daughter and granddaughter of Mrs Cameron with whom he takes lodging. At night Mrs Cameron tells Sheena traditional stories of the Silver Bough, a branch with nine golden apples on which music can be played. The Silver Bough “was the passport in those distant days to the land of the gods.” This is one of a few local tales, another is of an urisk which supposedly haunts the stone circle. The text mentions in passing that attempt to define the key to all religions, James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, to which Gunn’s book’s title surely alludes.

Taken by Sheena (whose mother Grant quickly divines is not married, having come back early from service in London in the Second World War as a result of her pregnancy) Grant later has made for her a silver bough made as an item of jewellery “two feet long with nine golden apples pendent.” Sheena’s father is not unknown, though. He is that same landowner, Donald Martin, but his war experiences in the Far East, where he witnessed various atrocities, have left him taciturn and unengaging, prone to wandering the hills or out on his boat, and Anna, in her pride, is content to leave things as they are. There are, in any case, questions of their differing stations in life intervening.

The main plot, though, revolves around the uncovering of the cairn, for which Grant employs for the heavy work the only local help available, a not-fully-there young man dubbed Foolish Andie, who speaks only in grunts. Their first discovery, beside the cairn’s entrance, of a burial cist containing the bodies of a mother and daughter spooned together, reminds Grant of Anna and Sheena as he first encountered them. Inside the cairn itself they find collections of bones and an urn with a hoard of golden objects.

Throughout, Gunn displays a knowledge of archaeological terms and practices which is convincing to the otherwise unversed. Grant’s mistake, though, in returning to the cairn at night unaccompanied seems one a proper professional would not have made. Without it, however, there would have been no remaining plot to unfurl.

On that night visit, Grant is surprised by the appearance of Foolish Andie and knocked unconscious, while the urn disappears, presumably taken by Andie to some hiding place of his. Grant’s discomfiture at this is not helped by the presence nearby of some journalists who quickly latch on to the story and sensationalise it.

There is a lot more to The Silver Bough than this short account might suggest. Each of the characters is finely drawn, even down to Foolish Andie’s mother Mrs McKenzie, Martin’s sister Mrs Sidbury, both protective of their respective close relatives, Grant’s ultimate boss, Colonel Mackintosh, come up from London to verify the hoard.

This is another fine example of Gunn’s œuvre.

Pedant’s corner:- “for appearance’ sake” (appearance’s sake,) “his heart swole up” (old Scots for ‘swelled up’. )

I don’t normally do this year summation thing before Christmas (it offends my sensibilities to do such a thing before the full time span has elapsed) but in this case I don’t think I’ll be adding to the total before New Year.

I seem to have read 26 Scottish books so far this year (the definition of Scottish is loose;) 13 by women and 13 by men. Four were Science Fiction, Fantasy or Fable, two collections of shorter fiction, one was poetry and one was a fictionalised memoir. The links below are to my reviews of those books.

World Out of Mind by J T McIntosh

News of the Dead by James Robertson 

The Little Snake by A L Kennedy 

Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides by Kevin MacNeil

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

The Second Cut by Louise Welsh

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan

Solution Three by Naomi Mitchison

Not to Disturb by Muriel Spark

Dust on the Paw by Robin Jenkins

The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett

Queen of Clouds by Neil Williamson

Kitchenly 434 by Alan Warner

An Apple From a Tree by Margaret Elphinstone

Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson

Squeaky Clean by Callum McSorley

The Hothouse by the East River by Muriel Spark

The Other Side of Stone by Linda Cracknell

To the Dogs by Louise Welsh

The Changeling by Robin Jenkins

Aunt Bel by Guy McCrone

Conquest by Nina Allan

Xstabeth by David Keenan

Borges and Me by Jay Parini  

The Silver Bough by Neil Gunn  (review to be posted here soon.)

White Rabbit, 2020, 172 p

The book is prefaced with a biography of one David W Keenan who committed suicide in 1995, lists his interest in occult matters, his published pamphlets relating to his home town of St Andrews and that he self-published one novel in his lifetime, Xstabeth by David W Keenan, Illuminated Edition with Commentary, reproduced in full thereafter – including various commentaries (as by diverse academics) interpolated between the narrative chapters.

With this I found myself in Russia again, seemingly in the immediate post-Soviet era, though this time St Peters (not for some reason St Petersburg) rather than Moscow where narrator Aneliya is the daughter of a famous musician, who is friends with one “even famouser,” Jaco, though the story later transfers itself to St Andrews.

Jaco is not the type a respectable girl ought to be getting mixed up with. He drinks and frequents strip clubs. But Aneliya is drawn to him nonetheless, with the consequences we might expect. During one of their encounters, in which Aneliya describes one of Jaco’s sexual kinks, she has the disturbing thought that Jaco had performed similar deeds on her mother.

The mysterious Xstabeth enters the story when an impromptu performance by her father in a club is secretly recorded on an old reel-to-reel recorder by one of the staff who is so besotted by it he determines to release it pseudonymously. The music has a force all to itself which is mesmeric but an acquired taste.

The transition to St Andrews is somewhat surprising but gives Keenan an opportunity to display his knowledge of the town. The street known as The Scores – thought to be named after golfing record cards – is said to be a place to pick up prostitutes (think about it) but little evidence is given for this in the text. Nevertheless, the famous golfer – never actually named but sufficiently accomplished to be tied for the lead in the tournament ongoing in the town – Aneliya has met at the hotel asks her to attempt to ply the trade there. It is only he (the famous golfer, who opines that Russian whores are the most desirable,) who obliges himself though.

Aneliya tells us “Naivety gets me every time. Knowledge can be cynical. It just gets used to undermine things. Sarcasm and irony are horrible. Naivety is the deepest form of belief. It’s closer to reality. To wonder. Plus it has more love in it” and “Writing is always starting from scratch. On the blank sheet. Always beginning again. Even when you think you’ve cracked it.”

David W Keenan’s Xstabeth is a strange but compelling confection. The narrative parts are written in short sentences. Sometimes broken up. Into even shorter ones. The effect is as if we are listening to someone speaking to us in staccato fashion. The addition of the commentaries makes David (without the W) Keenan’s Xstabeth even more idiosyncratic. Like the music it is named for, Xstabeth is a genre of one.

Pedant’s corner:- famouser (why Keenan chose to employ this for some while rather than the more familiar ‘even more famous’ is obscure,)  “the lay of the land” (x 3. It wasn’t a tune. The correct phrase is ‘the lie of the land’,) neck-in-neck (it’s neck and neck,) confectionary (confectionery.)

B&W, 1998, 279 p. First published 1949.

This is the first sequel to McCrone’s Wax Fruit trilogy. For my reviews see here, here and here. I had seen a copy of a further sequel, The Hayburn Family, in a charity shop in Edinburgh’s Morningside but didn’t buy it since I hadn’t read this one. However we were at a book sale in Peebles a couple of months ago and there were copies of both books in this B&W edition so bought both of them.

Bel Moorhouse likes to think of herself as the extended Moorhouse family’s benefactress. When a nephew and niece of hers decide to marry she it is who arranges and pays for the wedding. (Well, her husband pays for it; she takes the credit.) Unfortunately, on the day the organist, Mr Netterton, fails to turn up and she goes to his house along with her almost adult son, Arthur (named after his father,) to see if he can recommend anyone else. No-one coming to mind, he asks his daughter Elizabeth if she could do it. With some hesitation she agrees and carries it off well. Bel is thereafter full of Elizabeth’s praises. Unbeknown to her, however, Elizabeth has attracted the attentions of young Arthur.

The plot revolves around the two youngsters’ suitability – or otherwise – for each other. In her rise through society Bel has developed snobbish attitudes, with which in this case her brother-in-law George agrees – a bit of a cheek considering both  the origins of the Moorhouse family on an Ayrshire farmand her own upbringing.

She manages to offend both Elizabeth’s father and the girl herself before realising the depth of the couple’s feelings for each other. Indeed Elizabeth is so incensed by Bel’s approach she considers not seeing young Arthur any more. The older Arthur has a more sensible attitude to proceedings.

As in Wax Fruit, the prose rarely – I’m tempted to say never – rises above the workmanlike. It is obvious from the moment Elizabeth comes in to the story where it will lead. It is all very easy to read however.

Pedant’s corner:- “the Prince of Wales’ elder son” (Wales’s,) “something about Lady Ruanthorpe’s being very kind” (why that possessive? ‘about Lady Ruanthorpe being very kind’ carries the meaning perfectly well.) Dandy (of a Dandie Dinmont terrier referred to as ‘Dandie’ two lines later.)

Canongate Classics 22, 1995, 191 p, plus viii p Introduction by Alan Spence.

Charlie Forbes is an English teacher married to Mary, with a daughter Gillian and son Alistair. To the scorn and dismay of his headmaster and colleagues he considers one of his pupils, Tom Curdie, to be highly intelligent and worthy of encouragement. For Tom’s home is in Donaldson’s Court, ‘one of the worst slums in Europe’ and his dress matches that environment. Tom’s mother, her bidey-in – the crippled Shoogle not Tom’s father – and Tom’s brother Alec and sister Molly all share a single room in the Court. That Tom is sensitive – shown by his essays and choice of song at a competition – is a testament to him.

Forbes conceives that taking Tom on their annual holiday with his family “doon the watter” to Argyll will be to Tom’s benefit. (This is set in the grand old days when such expeditions by Clyde steamer were all but mandatory for Glasgow folk.) Forbes’s wife begs to differ about the prospect, Alistair is not bothered either way, but Gillian is suspicious. Prior to the trip we are made privy to Tom’s instincts when he breaks into the school at night to steal some money he knows has been left in a teacher’s desk. Nevertheless, Jenkins engages our sympathy towards him by revealing the circumstances of his home life.

As they approach the holiday destination, Forbes thinks to tell Tom, “‘In no other country in the world, not even in fabled Greece, is there loveliness so various and so inspiring in so small a space,’” but an inner voice, echoing one of his teaching colleagues, says to him “it’s guff, a lot of guff.” On landing, observing the other passengers disembark, Forbes recalls a coast landlady had once told him Glasgow folk were ones to splash the siller, East coasters and the English were far cannier.

A curiosity here is that Jenkins mentions other Clyde ports of call such as Kilcreggan, Craigendoran, Tighnabruaich, Largs, Millport and Rothesay but calls the Forbes family’s destination Towellan and its neighbour Dunroth rather than the Innellan and Dunoon on which they are obviously modelled.

Key incidents involve an encounter with a myxomatosic rabbit, Gillian spying on Tom on a trip to Dunroth where she witnesses him stealing two items of little worth but buying a more valuable present for Mary, the arrival of Tom’s friends Chick and Peerie and later of his mother and her brood, Shoogle and all.

While Forbes oscillates between being understanding to Tom and feeling there is nothing to be done to help him there is an evolution of others’ attitudes as the book progresses. Gillian eventually warms to Tom while Tom himself, having seen the possibilities life could have held for him turns in on himself. To reveal any more would constitute a spoiler.

As always with Jenkins the writing is assured, the insights sharp and his compassion for his characters shines through.

Sensitivity note. The text describes a photographer as a Jew.

Pedant’s corner:-  In the Introduction; V S Naipul (V S Naipaul,) Jenkins’ (x 2, Jenkins’s.) Otherwise none.

Polygon, 2018, 138 p, plus iv p Foreword by Alan Taylor and viii p Introduction by Ian Rankin. First published in 1973.

(I thought I’d posted this review a few weeks ago but it seems I hadn’t. As a result of that thought I deleted my pedant’s corner notes. I kept the review’s text, though, as I also post them on a private blog I follow and contribute to. So here it is.)

Another of Spark’s enigmatic novels, unusually this time set in 1970s New York. Paul and Elsa are a relatively well off British couple living in Manhattan with a view of the East River. Elsa’s behaviour is erratic and Paul wonders if she is mad. As an emblem of this, great play is made of the appearance of Elsa’s shadow which always falls wrongly, as if she is lit from a different direction. Her analyst, Garven, spends a lot with them and later takes on the job of butler.

Elsa tells Paul she has recognised an assistant in a shoe shop as Kiel, a former German POW whom they had dealings with during the Second World War. Paul insists this man would be too young and, in any case, believes Kiel died not long after their acquaintance. Paul and Elsa had been employed in the war to try to gain as much information from the POWs as possible to which end Elsa went on long walks with Kiel (and it is likely that significantly more happened between them.)

Among the surreal events which take place is the first night of a production of Peter Pan, overseen by Paul and Elsa’s son, with only old people as the cast, brought to a halt when Elsa pelts the actors with tomatoes causing a disturbance large enough to have the police called.

These are tedious people carrying on pointless activities. That they are people who seem in fact to be dead (or in the case of Paul and Elsa’s children never to have lived at all) perhaps explains it all, but that would be little more satisfactory than stating that it was all a dream, rendering the whole enterprise a bit meaningless. If they are dead what relevance do their interactions have to everyday life or to the human condition? What lesson can be drawn from them?

Kate Atkinson dealt much better with this kind of dilemma in A God in Ruins.

Sensitivity note: mentions Negroes.

Canongate, 2024, 334 p, including 2 p Acknowledgements.

“The reception area had been designed with an eye to vomit and violence.” Thus begins this book, which if you hadn’t already known this was a crime novel would certainly have alerted you instantly.

Jim Brennan is the son of a minor criminal who managed to evade a life of petty crime and has worked himself up to the position of vice-Chancellor at the Universty. He has lived comfortably with his wife Maggie and children Eliot and Sarah till his existence is turned upside down by Eliot’s arrest for possessing drugs with the intention to deal. This drags him into the shady world he thought he had left behind as he finds himself having to dance to the tune of the gangsters to whom Eliot owes a large amount of money, all while navigating the problems of his work – a student who has committed suicide, the University’s possibly compromising connections with China, the Principal’s impending retiral, a Physics professor’s antipathy and the overseeing of granting of contracts for new buildings.

This odyssey into the darker side of life leads him into contact with Eddie Cranston, now a low-grade criminal lawyer with a sideline in helping youths to stay out of trouble, a property developer called Henders, an ex-student named Becca and – eventually – with one of his father’s old sparring partners.

In a conversation with Henders he contrasts the change in attitudes over his life by saying, “‘My dad was a low-grade hardman. An occasional enforcer with what we’d now call anger management issues. Back in the day folk just said he was mental.’”

There is, though, really only one incidence of violence in the book – which occurs offstage – and also a death in the climactic scene, but on the whole the novel doesn’t actually deliver on the threat of that opening line. Not that that’s a bad thing.

As a portrait of a man caught on the horns of a prickly dilemma it is entertaining enough with Welsh’s typical good writing and convincing characterisation.

Pedant’s corner:- “on the brew” (usually rendered as ‘on the broo’; from burroo, a west of Scotland corruption of bureau, itself short for Employment Bureau, the precursor of Job Centres,) “breath smelt of fruit pastels” (fruit pastilles,) “an urge to hoick and spit” (to hawk and spit,) “wedding band” (is a USianism, the British is always wedding ring, which was used five lines later, so maybe this was to avoid quick repetition,) Henders’ (several times; Henders’s,) “hung themselves in despair” (hanged themselves.) “He got to his feet, ending indicating the meeting was over” (either ‘He got to his feet, ending the meeting’, or, He got to his feet, indicating the meeting was over’,) “made it barely seemed to matter” (made it barely seem to matter,) “before he hung himself” (hanged himself,) “Rowan was on her knees in the kitchen, cleaning the oven, when Jim entered the kitchen” (doesn’t need two mentions of the kitchen.) “A barbers manned by …” (A barber’s,) “that another pair of eyes were observing him” (another pair … was observing him.) “A crowd of students were streaming down the hill” (a crowd  … was streaming.) In the acknowledgements; “Writing a books is nice work if you can get it” (either ‘Writing a book’ or, ‘Writing books’.)

Taproot Press, 2021, 148 p.

This is a novel (or more correctly a collection of nine shorter pieces linked to each other, four with the same narrator) which tells the story of a woollen mill situated thirty miles from Perth. The viewpoint characters are:-

The stone mason who leaves a stylised mark on the reverse of the entrance lintel in order to house a glaistig (defined in a later section as a sort of green witch) which has been troubling a local family during the building of the mill in 1831.

A woman in the years immediately prior to the Great War (an event whose imminence will save the mill’s fortunes – for a while,) who addresses the mill directly as she unfolds her story of frustrated suffragism and workers’ rights.

The loyal worker who lingers in the mill after it closes in 1990 and takes the pattern book and last bolt of cloth home with him.

The owners’ son who in 2003 hives himself off to Zanzibar to set up a loom there. But it is a short-lived interlude. On the train home from the airport he reflects of an encounter that, “He would have hugged the man, but there was a table between them, and he was Scottish.”

The property developer who hasn’t calculated the effect of his refurbishments on the mill building’s safety.

The young urban woman dragooned into a project to find rare fruits (a wasted ‘food resource’ and repository of knowledge and skills on how to store and cook them) who can’t believe anyone would choose to return to such a backwater but comes across the now demolished entrance lintel. Mrs Campbell, the old artist whom she meets, tells her a witch is just another word for a strong woman.

Each of these works on its own as a short story. Cumulatively they describe the rise and fall of an industry, the lure of patronage, feelings of hope and revenge, the transience of human endeavour, but that the future will come regardless.

Cracknell’s writing is sharp and her characters are drawn superbly. This is excellent stuff.

Pedant’s corner:- “a midgie” (a midge,) “softened by sticky dust. .” (only one full stop needed,) “has been put it in the newspaper” (doesn’t need the ‘it’,) “there’s nothing more that Knights can do” (Knight’s.) “He span round to face her” (He spun round.) “Her question sunk him onto one of the kitchen stools” (Her question sank him into…,) “where the stone had laid before” (where the stone had lain.)

Pushkin Vertigo, 2024, 405 p.

Alison McCoist has been all but shunned in Glasgow’s police after she made a mistake in believing the confession of a man called Knightley to the murder of a young pregnant woman. The real culprit remains at large and DI McCoist – who has enough on her plate already what with her name being similar to a well-known former footballer (‘I’ve heard all the jokes already’) and only seeing her twin children under access conditions at weekends – is as a result widely thought to be on the take.

In parental terms Davey Burnet is in the same boat as Alison. His estranged wife Sarah is seeking an order to prevent him seeing his four-year-old daughter Annalee. His job at Sean’s carwash does not pay well and he has problems with booze.

When Paul McGuinn turns up in an expensive car asking for it to be cleaned – of evidence of his extra-marital exploits – Davey and would-be law student Tim do too good a job. McGuinn keeps returning.

Meanwhile DI McCoist is working away in the background trying to redeem her reputation. Her attention is drawn to the carwash by a complaint from a female customer who left her child in the back seat to go shopping while her car was being cleaned and was subjected to abuse and threats by Sean when she came back.

One day Davey mistakes the date of his child access hearing and when reminded of it by his mother panics into taking McGuinn’s car to try to make it on time. He is blocked in on the way, and kidnapped. People out to get McGuinn – a local crime boss into trafficking, prostitution, and with a yen for violence – have made a mistake. As a harmless innocent they let Davey go and burn the car. But Davey’s error has delivered both himself and the carwash business as a whole into McGuinn’s hands. Soon all sorts of clean-up jobs, most of them grisly, fall Davey’s way.

There is a sticker on the front cover saying this won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. I thought it was all right, diverting enough but not especially notable in terms of crime fiction. It did have a strong sprinkling of Glaswegian dialect. For my taste there was too much violence but I suspect crime readers would not be displeased by that.

Oh, and despite the foregrounding of the detective in most of the commentary/reviews of Squeaky Clean I have seen this is actually Davey Burnet’s story not Alison McCoist’s.

Pedant’s corner:- on the back cover “half the Glasgow copshop think DI Alison McCoist is bent” (half the Glasgow copshop thinks ….,) bicky/bickies (biccy/biccies,) gyprock (several times. That building material’s proprietary name is Gyproc,) “next him” (next to him.) “Dannie’s Gibb’s body” (Dannie Gibbs’s,) sprung (sprang,) “dove in” (dived in,) “a twitching bag of ticks” (of tics,) epicentres (centres,) “pouring out a gash on her forehead” (pouring out of a gash,) staunch (stanch.)