This debut novel from Malachy Tallack follows the old adage, ‘Write about what you know’. Raised in Shetland, and author of two previous non-fiction books about the island, Tallack is uniquely positioned to tell the story of life in a remote Shetland valley. The narrative, told from several points of view, follows the intertwining lives Read More
As part of Creative Scotland and the National Library of Scotland’s year-long celebration of the life and works of Muriel Spark, the International Style of Muriel Spark exhibition is being held at NLS. Spark, who said she threw away “practically nothing on paper”, forms one of the largest archives at the library, and the exhibition Read More
In Muriel Spark’s seventeenth novel, The Only Problem, the rich and secretive Harvey Gotham is holed away in a small cottage in France. He lives with the smallest of comforts, working on a book about the character of Job, from the Book of Job in the Bible. As Spark’s novel unfolds, Harvey’s suffering is likened Read More
“Sometimes, when I am walking down the King’s Road … and chance to remember the island, immediately all things are possible.” Robinson, Muriel Spark Candia McWilliams’s claim in her introduction to the Birlinn centenary edition of Muriel Spark’s Robinson that she, McWilliams, was reputed at school to have “swallowed a thesaurus”, places her in excellent Read More
“Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and dying as on a battlefield.” Memento Mori is Muriel Spark’s third novel and seems, at first, to be a simple mystery novel with a “whodunnit” to be solved. But Spark is Read More
The Bachelors, sets London as a stage on which its characters perform giving the reader the same intimacy as sitting in the stalls. In his introduction, James Campbell notes that this novel, first published in 1960, was written at a time when Spark’s career was taking a turn towards the theatre. This is, in many Read More
“What we are doing,” Tom told his crew, “is real and not real. We are living in a world where dreams are reality and reality is dreams. In our world everything starts from a dream.” This quote, from the final chapter of Muriel Spark’s Dreams and Reality, encapsulates the book’s title, and entices the reader Read More
As the title suggests, poverty is the central theme of Spark’s slim seventh novel, not just financial poverty but also a poverty of mind and spirit. Set primarily between VE Day and VJ Day, the novel’s central characters are the residents of the May of Tek Club, a boarding house in Kensington – For the Read More
“It wouldn’t have happened if Dougal Douglas hadn’t come here.” This February marks 100 years since the birth of Scottish author Muriel Spark. In celebration of her life and work, Birlinn will re-publish all her novels under their Polygon imprint to commemorate the occasion. The Ballad of Peckham Rye is her fourth novel, now out Read More
Coming a little later than halfway through Spark’s career, Territorial Rights is a romp. Set in Venice, the novel pulls together and twists half a dozen contrivances, and comes out with an almighty tangle. The plot begins with Robert Leaver, an English Art History student arriving in the Italian city, in pursuit of Lina Pancev, Read More