Five Scottish Novels I’ve Read

Having written a couple of these posts on Irish fiction, it’s time for a few Scottish favourites, some written in such rich dialect I could hear it as I read. There’s a real skill to that kind of writing as anyone who’s read a cringe-makingly poor version of it will know. Here then are five Scottish novels I’ve enjoyed, all with links to reviews on this blog.

Anne Donvan’s Buddha Da is a fine example of dialect executed so brilliantly that Jimmy McKenna’s voice was in my head for quite some time after I’d finished it. Working-class, Glaswegian and proud of it, Jimmy becomes interested in Buddhism after chatting to a monk in a café. He’s a painter and decorator, a bit of an unlikely convert but soon he’s off on weekend retreats much to the bemusement of his family. Donovan unfolds the story from the point of view of Jimmy, his wife and their eleven-year-old daughter both of whom struggle with the concept of Jimmy’s newfound fervour after years of self-professed atheism not to mention drunken high-jinks. Donovan’s novel is very funny at times but has serious things to say about tolerance and the way we lead our lives.

Louise Welsh’s The Cutting Room keeps us in Glasgow where Bowery Auctions is close to bankruptcy when its auctioneer is offered an opportunity that will pull it back from the brink – clearing a house stuffed with precious objects. Rilke agrees to do the job despite the owner’s insistence that it must be completed within a week and that only he must deal with the attic which he finds full of rare pornographic books. He’s not a squeamish man but the discovery of photographs depicting sexual torture and what may be a murder committed many years ago appals him. He begins an investigation that takes him into the murkiest areas of Glasgow in search of the truth. Welsh’s novel explores the depths of human depravity as it draws towards a shocking and sobering denouement. I was wary of reading its sequel twenty years after this one was published but I’m delighted to say The Second Cut is just as good.

Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo is set in early ‘90s Glasgow where fifteen-year-old Mungo is his mother’s darling, soft-hearted and adoring of her, in need of toughening up as far as his older brother is concerned. When Mungo spots James tending his pigeons a friendship begins which gradually becomes something else taking them into dangerous territory in their homophobic neighbourhood, even more so given that Mungo is Catholic and James, Protestant. Written with the same wit, compassion and tenderness as the Booker Prize-winning Shuggie Bain, it’s very dark at times. I chose to interpret the ending as hopeful perhaps because it was too heart wrenching to do otherwise.

Moving away from Glasgow, Jenni Fagan’s Luckenbooth tells the stories of the inhabitants of a many-floored Edinburgh tenement over nine decades, beginning with the arrival of the devil’s daughter in 1910, fresh from murdering her father. No brief synopsis will do justice to this richly imaginative slice of feminist fiction which spins stories within stories, many laced with a dark dry humour. Fagan divides her novel into three parts, each telling the tale of three tenants over three decades, ranging from the flamboyantly gothic to gangland crime to William Burroughs’s visit to his lover who lives in Luckenbooth Close. All this played out against the backdrop of an Edinburgh so vividly evoked it’s almost a character in itself.

Unlike the previous four novels, Kirstin Innes’s Scabby Queen takes us all over the place, from the Scottish Highlands to the Genoa G8 protests, as it explores over three decades of political protest through the story of Clio Campbell, firebrand and erstwhile rock star, who takes her own life just three days before her fifty-first birthday. Clio’s appearance on Top of the Pops displaying her politics to the world as she unbuttons her shirt to reveal a close-fitting T-shirt bearing an anti-poll tax slogan, is the zenith of her career, enshrined in popular culture. While her musical influence wanes her passion for justice continues to shine brightly until she chooses the ultimate political act. Written with wit, humour and sharp observation, this long, sprawling novel is the antithesis of the pared back, tightly disciplined writing I so admire, but I loved it.

Any favourite Scottish you’d like to share? I have plans for a Welsh post soon.

If you’d like to explore more posts like this, I’ve listed them here.