Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88464 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-17
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Iain Banks
'an assured, beautifully written novel'

Allan Massie, Scotsman
`Butlin is a novelist capable of making the improbable ring true .
. . remarkable powers of description . . .compellingly written'

Synopsis
Scottish drifter Jack McCall, handyman in an Alpine ski resort, spends his days sneaking into the empty penthouses of the super-rich with his partner Anna, sipping champagne and partying in private jacuzzis. At 29, Jack's unsure of what he wants from life, but Anna wants commitment. Then one night a man slips on a frozen balcony in a nearby apartment and dies from his injuries. Only one person saw what happened - the man's lover Therese, a quiet French girl with firework-coloured hair. Looking back, Jack remembers his first sight of Therese as the moment things started to go wrong...Ron Butlin's third novel descends into a 21st century heart of darkness as Jack gravitates first to Paris, then to a hippy commune in Spain's parched northern wilderness, where the subsistence idyll is ultimately shattered by violence, infidelity and death. Amid a society overshadowed by threats of terrorism and natural disasters, Ron Butlin's characters struggle to put down roots, and pass through ice and fire to achieve redemption - and finally, a kind of belonging.

Customer Reviews

A Claustrophobic Mini-Masterpiece
I read Ron Butlin's first novel, The Sound of My Voice, many years ago and its authentic original style has stayed with me ever since. So when I saw he had a new book out I bought it immediately. Belonging begins in a secluded ski resort where two drifters are care-taking the exclusive apartments. They are snowed in by the weather and their relationship. Two other people arrive before the storm sets in and things take a turn for the worse. Butlin's protaganist then suffers series of setbacks and horros mainly due to his own inability to take responsibility for anything and choosing very bad partners. Again Butlin writes in a truly original voice and carries the reader to an unexpected finish. This is very good Scottish writing