Alistair Braidwood
  • Indelible Ink: Denise Mina’s Garnethill Scottish crime fiction is generally held to be a helpful category to be filed under if you want to sell books. The term ‘Tartan Noir’ is one that many find grating, but it has undoubtedly helped raise the profile of some of Scotland’s finest writers. The downside is that some may prejudge those writers, believing […]
    0
    Comments
    October 30, 2015
  • Indelible Ink: Angus Peter Campbell’s ‘The Girl On The Ferryboat’ Some of Scotland’s greatest writers have been bilingual in English and Gaelic. In the last 100 years there have been glorious examples, from Sorley MacLean, through Iain Crichton Smith and Derick Thomson, to Aonghas MacNeacail, Meg Bateman, Peter MacKay, and many more. Although all are distinctly individual, it does appear there is something in the […]
    0
    Comments
    September 13, 2015
  • Indelible Ink: Jane Alexander’s ‘The Last Treasure Hunt’ There are only a few novels which have dealt well with our age of celebrity, such as Brett Easton Ellis’s ‘Glamorama’, but there are hundreds of terrible novels written by celebrities, (‘A Mother’s Gift’ by Britney Spears, anyone? Thought not) which is a damning comment on current cultural concerns in itself. Luckily, Jane Alexander’s intriguing […]
    0
    Comments
    July 17, 2015
  • Indelible Ink: Raymond Drennan’s ‘The Limits Of The World’ There has been a lot of discussion lately on the value we put on art and its importance culturally and socially. With arts funding being cut, subsidies withdrawn, and academic courses in art and literature having their budgets reduced in favour of more financially lucrative schools of thought, we have to think seriously about the […]
    0
    Comments
    June 3, 2015
  • Indelible Ink: Laura Hird’s ‘Born Free’ We have referenced the Chemical Generation of writers a few times on Indelible Ink, and featured the best of their work with Irvine Welsh’s ‘Trainspotting’, Alan Warner’s ‘Morvern Callar’, Duncan McLean’s ‘The Bunker Man’ and Gordon Legge’s ‘The Shoe’. This month we feature the fifth entry into what I consider the Top Five Chemical Generation […]
    0
    Comments
    April 7, 2015
  • Indelible Ink: Chris Dolan’s ‘Redlegs’ Last year’s Commonwealth Games prompted a lot of discussion and debate about Scotland’s place in the Commonwealth, the creation of the British Empire, and, in turn, its role in the slave trade. Thanks to events such as The Empire Café and the ‘How Glasgow Flourished’ exhibition at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove many people learned a lot more […]
    0
    Comments
    March 17, 2015
  • Indelible Ink: Kei Miller’s ‘The Last Warner Woman’ The best novels are not simply great stories; the magic comes in the telling. Kei Miller’s 2010 novel ‘The Last Warner Woman’ is as much about storytelling as it is about the characters themselves. Miller plays with the reader’s perception of how a novel should be structured and examines how the same story must be […]
    0
    Comments
    February 19, 2015
  • Indelible Ink: Iain Maloney’s ‘First Time Solo’ Scotland’s relationship with the rest of Britain hadn’t been as intensely discussed as it was last year since the Act of Union in1707. This was not only because of the Referendum, but also due to the arrival of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and other events during 2014, such as the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles. […]
    0
    Comments
    January 9, 2015
  • Indelible Ink: Helen FitzGerald’s ‘The Cry’ James Kelman once stated that real drama is to be found in ordinary people’s everyday lives, and certainly the same could be said about real horror. The supernatural and fantastic may give us a shock or inspire nightmares, but our greatest fear and terror is surely based in reality; the dangers which can be found […]
    0
    Comments
    December 4, 2014