Jill Hopper(Saraband Books, 2021); hbk, 2021) Billed as a memoir of beginnings and endings this is the first book by Jill Hopper, a London based freelance journalist. It joins the growing number of personal accounts of loss and grief such as Joyce Carol Oates’ A Widow’s Story, or Megan O’ Rourke’s The Long Goodbye. Collectively Read More
With this moving and poetic novel, full of the rhythms of Gaelic and Doric, Donald Murray has created both a memorial and a song of love, grief and lament, reflected in the windswept landscapes of the Isle of Lewis. Narrated by Alasdair Cruikshank, retired Glasgow art teacher, grandson of Tormod Morrison, a fictional survivor of Read More
At the 2017 Dundee Literary Festival’s event for debut novelists, Ever Dundas is joined on stage by Gillian Best and Helen McClory. Dundas reads first, introducing her book Goblin. An hour later, she sits across from me in a small cafe area below the hall she has spoken in. There is a shift between the Read More
Histories of the 20th century are numerous and, for those of us interested in understanding the present moment, fascinating. There is a commonplace schoolroom telling of developments, wars and upheaval, but there are also endless personal stories: journeys through the recent past that bring more emotional engagement to their setting, or look directly at events Read More
Cross Purpose is an energetic debut novel that attempts to perform a balancing act between a gritty Tartan Noir and a darkly comic detective novel. Claire MacLeary’s first novel jumps into Scottish crime fiction with both feet. She doesn’t flinch away from the torrid tedium of life in Scottish council estates, but embraces the dichotomy Read More
(This is a lightly edited transcript of the interview; to view the whole interview, please click image above) Edward Small: Hello. I’m Eddie Small. I lecture in Creative Writing at the University of Dundee and we’re here today to do an interview with one of our past students on behalf of DURA, Dundee University Review of Read More
Deadlier than the Male, the tabloids said. They didn’t know the half of it. When reviewing Russel McLean’s previous novel Cry Uncle, I used the following sentence, “The gritty and honest narration has a truly Scottish attitude.” This is also true, perhaps even more so, of his newest book Ed’s Dead. McLean has already established Read More
“The Suitcase” exemplifies the central themes that make this collection of short stories an interesting and entertaining read. Overall, I found that the collection was well-written in presenting a spectrum of human experiences, with the author drawing vividly on episodes, usually tragic or traumatic, from across the lifespan. The author also explores the deceptive nature Read More
It’s sad when a word is poisoned by history. The word I’m thinking of is “collaboration.” Is it possible to wash off the wartime smear of sleaze and shame that this perfectly good word has acquired? What it describes really is something to be proud of, requiring both a clear personal voice and a generosity Read More
Graeme Macrae Burnet (Contraband/Saraband, 2015); pbk, £8.99 His Bloody Project, is not only the title of this novel, (a work of fiction constructed to give the appearance of a factual account), it is also the title of a sensationalist chapbook referred to later in the novel, based on the memoir of our unreliable narrator and Read More
