Scottish Authors that are"Pure Dead Brilliant"

The first person to add the correct answer to the comments will win $20 Any idea why we're throwing a spotlight on some Scottish authors this week? The first person to add the correct answer to the comment section below will win a $20 certificate to shop on Thrift Books. The person to leave the comment that makes us laugh the most will also win one. One person cannot win both and we'll announce the winners on this blog next week.

Is it something in the water in Scotland? A country with a population not much bigger than the city of Los Angeles, an independent legal system, drop dead beautiful scenery and a disproportionally dense concentration of the best contemporary fiction authors on the planet. This is all about born and bred Scottish authors with a mastery of their craft that could satisfy any discerning book shelf, several times over. Let me name a couple of my favorites.

Irvine Welsh and the 1993 debut novel Trainspotting made about as big a splash as it could. The book is a knitting together of vignettes or short stories that follow the disintegration of friendships because of heroin addiction and lack of opportunity. Made into an award-winning play, then a successful Danny Boyle film, it has reached cult status in all 3 mediums. Welsh was born in Leith ("But I would walk five hundred miles, And I would walk five hundred more ...") a blue-collar suburb of Edinburgh that in the 70s and 80s was the personification of Thatcherite decay. He has published 9 novels to date and I would rank Trainspotting and Filth as the books that left the most memorable impression on me (the latter is a tale of a depraved policeman and what I took to be his partner, only to realize that the partner is a tape-worm!) Welsh will take you there, by the scruff of your neck Two hallmarks of his style are that he never really dispenses with some of his central characters, having them crop up in multiple book and he writes with a heavy Scottish dialect. His subject matter is vivid, unrelenting, brutally beautiful, and abrasive, but if the point of fiction is to usher you into a different world, Irvine Welsh will take you there, by the scruff of your neck.

Changing gears, Dorothy Dunnett died about 15 years ago in her seventies. She wrote prolifically throughout her adult life and became, arguably, the greatest Scottish historical novelist out there. Much of her reputation rests on the creation of 3 towering series; The Lymond Chronicles, The House of Niccolo, both of which are series of historical novels, and Johnson Johnson, her earliest series (mystery novels) centered on a portrait painter-cum-spy-cum-yachtsman. My personal favorite is a novel that stands outside these series; King Hereafter, which fictionalizes the life and exploits of Macbeth. Dunnett asks a lot of us, in every book but in King Hereafter, she asks the most. Her historical precision is meticulous, the cast of characters and places is encyclopedic, and her character development, second to none. To be honest, the only other work of hers I've read is The Game of Kings, which was the first of the Lymond books, finally published by a US publisher after numerous rejections from English companies. This is one of the best openings to a saga I've read. The scope is so expansive, her detail and precision is immaculate and throughout she carries a razor-sharp wit. I think I've just committed myself to reading the rest of the series; too bad. ??

Both Irvine Welsh and Dorothy Dunnett hold a special place in Cambrian hearts, but especially Dunnett. She contributed to Scottish arts as a trustee of the National Library and a board member of Scottish TV, even founding a Dorothy Dunnett Society. This might sound self-serving but the charter of the organization promotes the history of Scotland from the 11th to the 16th centuries, its study, and public education about the period, more than her own body of work.

Don't forget about our contest. Why would we be singing the praises of Scottish authors this week?

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