The Crow Road

The Crow Road by Iain M. Banks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach."

Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he is also deeply preoccupied: mainly with death, sex, drink, Gold and illegal substances ..."
~back cover

This is an absolute gem of a book! Sparkling, witty: "a gorm-free creature called Rodney Ritchie; his parents owned Ritchie's Reliable Removals in Edinburgh and were keen on alliteration. My father had met them once and coined a new collective noun: an embarrassment of Ritchies." That set me howling with delight, and the rest of the book lived up to the beginning: slightly mad relatives, lovely references to all sorts of cultural markers and literature, a mystery so skillfully interwoven between the mad teenage angst and lust, the slight dottiness of all and sundry, that the delineation of the mystery comes as a complete surprise.

I could hardly put the book down, and am still enjoying revisiting it in my mind. Perhaps it's just that I'm daft for anything Scottish, but this book was a wonder, a jewel, a treasure. This book was everything I wanted A Confederacy of Dunces and An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England and Straight Man to be -- it makes me smile just to think of it.


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