Dear Scotland is Two, Indelible Ink Continues, World Keeps Turning…
This month’s Indelible Ink looks at Robin Jenkins’ 1958 novel The Changeling, with a little footage of The Doors in case you get bored (you’ll have to read it to get the connection which you can do now by going here indelible-ink-robin-jenkins). Next month’s featured novel will be Doug Johnstone’s tales of a rock n’ roll life The Ossians. Here’s a quick preview:
Next Month’s Novel: Novels about bands can be hit and miss. There are so many rock n’ roll clichés to begin with that a novel has to deal with them with care to avoid becoming formulaic, and after ‘Spinal Tap’ it is difficult to take the actions of bands in fiction entirely seriously. In his novel ‘The Ossians’, Doug Johnstone’s way of overcoming this is to go dark, and have the structure of a band as the backdrop to one man’s breakdown.
As with all of Johnstone’s novels the action goes at a fair lick, and there is sex, drugs and the senseless killing of seagulls to accompany the rock n’ roll. ‘The Ossians’ is a must read for anyone who has ever been in or around bands. Some of the behaviour may seem excessive, but there is an undeniable truth at the heart of the novel. Making music, and all that accompanies it, may distract you from life, but you can’t avoid it forever.
- Doug Johnstone The Ossians (July)
- Alexander Trocchi’s Young Adam.(Aug)
- Alan Spence Way To Go (Sept)
- A.L. Kennedy Paradise (Oct)
- Alice Thompson The Existential Detective (Nov)
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