Product Description

‘Fuck everyone from Holden Caulfield to Bridget Jones, fuck all the American and English phoney fictions that claim to speak for us; they don’t know the likes of us exist and they never did. We are who we are because we grew up the Stornoway way. We do not live in the back of beyond, we live in the very heart of beyond …’ Meet R Stornoway, drink-addled misfit, inhabitant of the Hebridean Isle of Lewis, and meandering man fighting to break free of an island he just can’t seem to let go of…

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #187672 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

About the Author
Kevin MacNeil was born and raised on the Isle of Lewis. He was British Council Writer in Residence at Uppsala University, Sweden, 2002-3 and inaugural Iain Crichton Smith Writing Fellow in the Scottish Highlands. His poetry has been translated into 10 languages and he has performed his English and Gaelic work in places as diverse as Columbia, Malta, America, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the Czech Republic. He has also written for radio, television and film. This is his first novel. A lyrically powerful and no-holds-barred exploration of contemporary life in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The novel is rendered by means of a multiplicity of arresting narrativve voices, shared between the author and his pseudonymous compatriot 'R. Stornoway'.

Customer Reviews

Cheery melancholy
Kevin MacNeil is a genius writer. No showing off here - just genuine lightning bolts of startling imagination. His writing is simultaneously evocative and funny, melancholy and cheery, heart-warming and utterly devastating. The nearest parallel is probably Alan Warner but - like most parallels - it's misleading. MacNeil is his own man. Looking forward to his next book unless he decides to change career and become a deep-sea diver.

math dha-riribh!
If anyone thought that Scottish Gaelic culture is all romantic and other worldly - then reading this would give them a hint of an insight into the realities of island life. It is a funny, sad account - but all too real. His Gaelic subnotes are funny - but you are never quite sure who he is taking the -you know what - out of: no one, you, himself, island life, life. His description of Bongilees is a sad jewel of truth. Theab mi mo mhun a chall! But they all get a going at - even the "Gaelic mafia" and the Leodhasach danger of the Curam.

Reading it, it is all too easy to fall into thinking this is a persons genuine account and not a fictious character - or is it? I am sure there are loads on Lewis who are trying to work out who is who and who has said what to whom- as is the norm.

Romanticised, droopy tourist will get a better indication what goes on in real life there by reading this - but also those who think Lewis is just the religously narrow of view will see that there is more behind the scene. Those who have moved there and have no understanding of the culture, interest in it or hostility to it etc etc - get a going and many a truth told

Oh - and loved the description of the Mod - too true!

poetic and poignant, uk cult classic, darkly hilarious.
award-winning poet kevin macneil's first novel is already an underground hardback hit in the uk. it tells the tale of a troubled artist who has grown up in the western isles of scotland and of how he does and doesnt cope with the world around him.
written in a sharp and succinct voice, the language is beautiful. one can see the poetic sensibility in the writing. the style is snappy and funny; kevin doesnt use ten words where one will do. it is not showy but a delightful, hilarious and thought-provoking examination of a darkness in the soul.
highly highly recommended.