The prose is vivid and clear and superb. The dialogue zings with authenticity. The psychologies are startingly sound and the sociology unabashedly hyper-realistic. The connection to emotions is genuine and painful and the breath is shallow and hurried.

Young Mungo — Douglas Stuart

We’ll look after ye, Mungo. Nae worries. We’ll have some laughs, and you can bring yer mammy some fresh fish”. Manners jerked on the ground. Mungo looked down at him and for a second, his eyes flashed with an anger so fierce, anyone who saw it would have feared for Manners’ life. In that moment, you could not doubt that Mungo was capable of anything. This novel is both intensely intimate and wildly Shakespearean. A family drama, a love story and a coming of age play out in an intensely macho and homophobic Glasgow in the 1980s. Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates, where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. There were cheers and approving applause. Up on the ladies’ balcony, more than one corset strained with admiration of Fairchild’s manly virtue.Instead it's just a series of bad things happening to a character that I don't care about occasionally interrupted by interludes of characters the reader is even less invested in and in one instance the actual child rapist. Mungo’s mother - Maureen - ‘Mo-Maw’ — sent him off on a fishing trip with strangers: St. Christopher and Gallowgate. Camilla, trapped in New Orleans and powerless to her position as a kept slave and Chester's brutish behaviour, must learn to do whatever it takes to survive. I didn’t mind visiting Google. It was part of the pleasure. Besides, I already knew the Scottish talk funny…..with euphemisms being - both -charming and offensive.

Call of the Raven | Wilbur Smith Call of the Raven | Wilbur Smith

with some of the most gorgeous writing and intimate storytelling there ever was. From tender to bloodthirsty brutal….. They are members of Alcoholic Anonymous. S’pose my maw thought it would do us awesome good to get some air about us”. Terrible business that. Yer mammy telt us all about that mess ye got yourself into with those dirty Fenian bastards. Catholics, man. Butter widnae melt.’ I can see how some readers will go gaga over this book. Those who believe literary fiction serves its purpose best if it delves into the dreary side of human existence might love this story. But it simply wasn’t my cup of tea. If he felt the hostility aimed at him, it did not shake the easy grin from his face. Indeed, he seemed to feed off the crowd’s energy.

Terms of Sale

I know in this House we are used to debating the fine points of law and politics. But this is not academic. The question of slavery speaks to a higher law. To keep innocent men and women in chains, to tear them from their homes and work them to death: this is a crime against God and all the laws of justice.’ The book plays out in two halves. The first set over a number of months is Mungo’s life in the period up to, during and after his relationship with James. The second a few months later is the aftermath, the book opening with Mo-Maw sending him on a rather hastily arranged fishing and camping trip to a remote Scottish loch with two men she knows from AA (Gallowgate and St (Sunday-Thursday) Christopher) – the two having proposed it as a way to man-up Mungo – the trip itself forming the second narrative strand. Perhaps what I say offends your moral sensibilities. I will not apologise for that. Instead, I beg you to look beyond your distaste and examine the proposition with clear-eyed honesty. If you sweeten your tea with sugar from the West Indies, or smoke Virginia tobacco then you support slavery. If your father owns a mill where they spin Alabama cotton; or a bank that underwrites the voyages of Liverpool ship owners, then I say again you support slavery.’ Or to use my phrase I would say it is about the insidious toxicity of masculinity, particularly when amplified by societal deprivation. There are many wonderful characters, including kindly neighbours who love Mungo. There is also politics. A teacher tries to explain to Jodie’s class the reason for the violence and despair.