BOOKS | PREVIEWS & REVIEWS
CRIME FESTIVAL BLOODY SCOTLAND Various venues, Stirling, Fri 20–Sun 22 Sep
First brought to life by a group of Scottish crime writers in 2012, Bloody Scotland has since forged its own path in the world of book festivals. Its penchant for atmospheric historic venues throughout Stirling’s Old Town and the gloriously dark themes explored by its writers ensure it has its own gruesome glow. Huge names on the crime scene like Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, Alex Gray and Lin Anderson will all be appearing, plus an exciting roster of non-fiction writers, including forensic scientist Professor Angela Gallop.
Icelandic queen of crime Yrsa Sigurdardottir is visiting for the festival, as are two different writing couples: Nicci French (the pseudonym of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French) and Ambrose Parry (the pairing of Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman). Lisa Jewell, known for her contemporary fiction, and more recently for her thrillers, will make her Bloody Scotland debut, as will Canadian bestseller Shari Lapena.
At the opening gala, the winners of the McIlvanney Prize
for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the new prize for Scottish crime fiction debut will be announced. They’ll then join a host of other writers and performers as they set off on the festival’s iconic torchlit procession.
Book a seat for a play at the sheriff court and be prepared to vote on the verdict of a real murder trial, get ready for some noise at the procession of Harley Davidson riders or chill out at screenings of classic crime films, introduced by Ian Rankin.
The glorious mixture of blood, guts and creativity
is maybe best described by Val McDermid, who said, ‘nobody leaves Bloody Scotland without their head birling like a peerie.' Visitors who’d also like a twirl on the dancefloor can take part in the killer ceilidh. (Lynsey May)
MEMOIR JENN ASHWORTH Notes Made While Falling (Goldsmiths Press) ●●●●● SHORT STORIES KIRSTY LOGAN Things We Say in the Dark (Harvill Secker) ●●●●●
HISTORICAL FICTION COLSON WHITEHEAD The Nickel Boys (Fleet) ●●●●●
As an author of three novels, Jenn Ashworth finds that for the first time in her life, fiction fails her. The novel she tries to conjure up in the aftermath of trauma and illness refuses to come to life, and she turns to non- fiction. The result is difficult to define; a memoir and essay collection and also an investigation into illness, expression and writing itself. Ashworth’s research is painstaking in the truest sense of the word. It is exhaustive, scouring and interrogative. She draws deeply from critical theory and examines writers experimenting with genre and form while pushing the boundaries herself.
In a moment of profound distress, Ashworth says ‘the words speak me’. Yet in this collection, the prose is precise and the language experimental in a way that could be called playful, if it wasn’t also so fraught.
Kirsty Logan, author of The Gloaming and A Portable Shelter, is both a novelist and short story writer and Things We Say in the Dark perfectly illustrates her command of the short form. In this contemporary collection, she invites you over the hearth for a storytelling session that goes right to our deepest, most closely guarded fears.
There’s a selection of forms here, including a dash of the supernatural, a good whack of re-imagined fairy tale, squirm-worthy body horror and several sophisticated scares. At the core, there’s a fierce and bloody feminism. Women give birth to fruit, to lovable monsters, to things they were never sure they wanted in ‘My Body Cannot Forget Your Body’ and fight their way to freedom in ‘Stranger Blood is Sweeter’.
‘Ground Zero’ is a series of ruminations severed The titles are a particular delight, with highlights
mid-thought then sewn back together, while ‘Attempts on the Life of King Lear’ reminds us that to relate to a character is not to condone it. Ashworth also shows us the bones of her writing, holding up an x-ray to an essay so we can see which parts grew, which broke, which fused together again. The essays are preoccupied with the search for pattern and meaning, both personal and between the writer and reader, ‘a risky mutual transfusion, is what literature is for’. And it’s exactly what’s been achieved in this genre-defying collection. (Lynsey May) ■ Out Wed 4 Sep.
such as ‘Girls are Always Hungry When all the Men are Bite-Size’ and ‘Sleep, You Black-Eyed Pig, Fall into a Deep Pit of Ghosts’. Light and illumination are a theme throughout, making the dark corners all the blacker, and the stories are framed by short passages that appear autobiographical and which slowly take on the same creeping dread elicited in the stories themselves. Join Logan on an unsettling journey through the
murkiest corners of her imagination, which is as fertile as it is expansive. (Lynsey May) ■ Out Thu 3 Oct.
54 THE LIST 1 Sep–31 Oct 2019
Colson Whitehead's follow-up to 2016's Pulitzer- winning The Underground Railroad employs 20th- century realism to confront racial injustices in America. The Nickel correctional school of the title is based on Florida's Dozier School for Boys, where multiple graves of abused pupils were recently excavated.
We follow Elwood Curtis through boyhood in 1960s Tallahassee, later life in New York, and the ragged wound of Nickel in between. With its high-school setting and moral clarity, it is surely destined for school reading lists. The narrative voice is clear, stern and wise, although occasionally clunky.
The first half gathers pace and detail. Young
Elwood is likeable and bookish, and his prospects seem bright – but the reader knows the tragic arc of black American history; there will be no victory without struggle and setback. Sure enough, Elwood is unjustly incarcerated in Nickel and his time there is a subversion of children’s boarding-school tales. The boys forge friendships and plan pranks, but here, the punishments are pederasty, racism, and beatings so hard they scar the mind and body for life. All this haunts the emotionally richer second half,
where the older, regretful Elwood lives a life never quite free of Nickel's long shadow. The Nickel Boys shows us how hard it is to break the habit of cowering; this is a novel about justified, inescapable, overwhelming fear and how it scars even – perhaps especially – the defiant. (Aran Ward Sell) ■ Out now.