I’ve been wanting to read something by Linda Gillard for quite a wee while now but her most recent book is only being published as an e-book and I’m not sure about reading a whole book from a screen – I know, I’m a Luddite. Anyway, a big thank-you to Jo at The Book Jotter for pointing me in Linda Gillard’s direction. I really enjoyed Emotional Geology which was published in 2005, I borrowed it from the library.
It’s set in the Western Isles of Scotland, mainly on North Uist where Rose has moved after experiencing a very traumatic event which has sent her over the edge. Rose suffers from manic depression and the relationship which she had with Gavin, a mountain climbing fanatic, didn’t help with her fragile state of nerves.
What does help is her beautiful quilting which she has shown at exhibitions. She pours the feelings which she can’t express any other way into her work. Calum, a local teacher asks her to show some of her wall-hangings to his pupils and so begins a tentative relationship which Rose is not at all sure she wants.
Well that’s a brief outline, you might know that I don’t like to go into much detail in reviews. Suffice to say that it’s a really good read about a subject which isn’t often written about and Linda Gillard has managed to portray a real feel of the atmosphere of a Scottish island and the inhabitants.
Linda comes from England but she lived on Skye for a number of years which stood her in good stead because she is able to write exactly as the people there speak, and the folks in Glasgow for that matter too. It’s something which isn’t all that easy to do. There’s only one thing which annoyed me and I know this is nit-picking but it always drives me mad. It’s that ‘aren’t I ‘ thing. Nobody in Scotland says aren’t I – we always say ‘amn’t I’ and I maintain that that is the correct way of speaking as of course I and am go together but I are certainly do not! Calum says aren’t I three times in the book!!! I think that an editor has probably ‘corrected’ the original. It sometimes happens that actors say aren’t I, even when they are Scottish and I always wonder why they don’t tell the director that it’s wrong if they are supposed to be Scottish.
Anyway, that’s my only moan in what was a bit of a treat for me really because I loved the setting and as a child I was always falling over crampons, ice picks and rope belonging to my very much older brother and of course I’ve always had an interest in geology. The manic depression I don’t have, thankfully, but we probably all have a bit of experience of that, even if only at second-hand. But as a keen crafter and one who has tried my hand at the odd wall hanging and bit of quilting/applique I have to say that I really loved all the descriptions of the fabric, beads and sequins and the like, and even the bin liners and shoelaces!
One wee word of warning – if you have a very strait-laced mother-in-law then this isn’t a book which you should recommend to her as there is quite a lot of use of the F word and a bit of sex – unless you want some very hard stares from her of course!
I’m really looking forward to reading Linda’s 2006 book A Lifetime Burning which I’ve requested from my library.
I’ve just hopped over to The Book Jotter and seen that this is going to seem a bit like a Linda Gillard Fest as Jo has just reviewed a book by her today but it’s a total coincidence!