Ian McKinney

"Scouse Gothic" is a fun, if uneven read, strong on originality, dialogue and characters but sometimes a little under-written in its descriptions and not entirely satisfying in its structure.

The pull of the novel for me was that it was a vampire story set in contemporary Liverpool, a city that I know well. I recognised every building in "Scouse Gothic" and enjoyed seeing Ian McKinney coat them with a plausible gothic veneer.

McKinney makes Liverpool a character in the novel. In an early chapter, two (very) long-term residents try to sum up Liverpool in a way that shows McKinney's affection for the place (and explains the subtitle of the novel):

‘Carl Jung called Liverpool ‘the pool of life’,’ she said.
´What did he mean by that?’
´Who knows, babe. He was a Swiss psychologist so your guess is as good as mine.’
´What’s your guess then?’
´Well, I think he meant that it’s everything in one place, good, bad, rich and poor. Just like a pan of scouse —throw everything in together, then heat it up, and what you get is something unique.’

One of the vampires lives in a modern apartment building next to Chavasse Park, in the heart of Liverpool One. The choice of building amused me as I think this is a block that reached for innovation and instead ended up having all the charm of a modern office building in Canary Wharf, so I assume Ian McKinney intended it to a symbol of soulless wealth, especially as the vampire living there decorated everything in beige and magnolia. Unfortunately, the building isn't described in enough detail for anyone unfamiliar with Liverpool to get the reference.

What Ian McKinney does very well is to describe the people of Liverpool. It isn't easy to walk the line of accurate depiction without falling into parody because Liverpudlians are aware of their history and their culture and they feel free to take the piss out of it whenever they want. It’s their birthright, a sign of their affection and an irresistible impulse. This is something that gets summed up in a vampire's description of the use of humour in Liverpool.

"You can’t appreciate it unless you know the rules. It’s sort of a non-contact martial art. It’s like ‘Gob-Judo’.

It’s the great leveller in this city, why no one in Liverpool is allowed to get too ‘up themselves’.

You can be rich and famous, people don’t mind that —‘local boy made good’ etc… But, if you ever act as though you’re better than anyone else, watch out. One day you'll be out with your mates, bathing in the warm glow of your self-satisfaction, telling anyone who’ll listen that the sun shines out of your arse, when someone will have had enough and just say one line, a stiletto of wit to puncture your ego, and suddenly, there you are, flat on your back, feeling a twat while your friends laugh at you."
I loved the subtle mournfulness of a long vampire life filled with too many Emmas (women as food, also referred to as takeaways) to remember and too many lost loves to bear and yet surrounded by the life and vitality of Liverpool. Here's how two of the vampires talk about it:

‘I used to know the people who lived here,’ he said. ‘
´When?’ ‘
1918.’ ‘
And?’ ‘
They died.’ ‘
They always do, babe. They’re like goldfish, lovely to look at but don’t get too attached because they don’t last long.’
I was touched by the daily visits one vampire, who still looks late teens, makes to her younger sister, now in her eighties and suffering from dementia, When the old woman tells her carers that she's happy because her big sister is visiting her, none of them believes her.

The book was a little uneven. Some passages, like the one where a very dangerous man returns to his isolated farmhouse and finds four killers waiting for him, are vivid and completely engaging. Other seem too lightly sketched. This is partly a problem of structure. Reading "Scouse Gothic" is like bingeing on the first ten episodes of a bold new TV series and then realising that you've only bought Part 1 of a twenty episode set: you find it novel and stimulating, and you're hungry for more and then, suddenly, it comes to a halt.

There are three Scouse Gothic books in all and I suspect that all three are needed before the relationships between the characters in the first novel are understood. In "Scouse Gothic" their lives overlap, sometimes with violent consequences but the role of some of the characters remains unclear.

We spend the second chapter with a recently widowed man who had a:

"...simple plan: get drunk, buy drugs, take drugs, then more alcohol and commit suicide. But now all that was messed up..."
and he finds himself .talking to a pigeon-shaped angel. I was fascinated but, although the character reappears in some later chapters, why he is in the novel isn't revealed.

I liked "Scouse Gothic" well enough to want to read the other two books but I wish they'd all been published in one volume.… (lisätietoja)

This is supernatural crime fiction where being a vampire doesn't come with the benefits that you might expect. The author weaves together the lives and histories of several characters, both vampire and non- (and one pigeon, sorta) against the backdrop of current day Liverpool.

I loved the ambience and snippets of history. The way the characters faced their problems made me chuckle (dang! another body to dispose of). However, I found it challenging to keep track of who they all were and their relationships with each other. This may have been partly because I read the book over a few train journeys rather than at one sitting. But I think it was mainly because of the extensive use of flashbacks to give us their various histories—I couldn't remain orientated enough to integrate the information with current events. Although I was keen to see what happened next, the setting stuck with me more strongly than the characters did.

I noticed just one typo (a "reek" instead of "wreak") and a few odd comma placements, but nothing significantly distracting.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read, and I'm curious to pick up the next book in the series.… (lisätietoja)

Melville is a vampire but he’s trying to quit drinking blood. Last night he may have killed someone but at least he feels better than he has in a while and he found someone to love. Peter is a man who can’t get over the death of his wife but hopefully his guardian angel can help him even if the angel looks mysteriously like a pigeon. Lathom is a hitman who has been double crossed and wants revenge but a man he tried to kill has something sinister in store for him. Kelly is an evil man who loves to hurt people and create chaos but his luck is running out. Last but not least we have Catherine whose life has been spent in a mental hospital since the murder of her son but now she may have the knowledge she needs for vengeance.

These five stories have two things in common, they all take place in Liverpool England and they are all part of Ian McKinney’s Scouse Gothic. I was interested in reading this book because I enjoy reading vampire fiction but this book was not what I expected. We start with a vampire but vampires in Scouse Gothic aren’t the same as they are in other books. This book doesn’t fit easily in any genre. It starts as a horror novel but becomes more of a human drama with horror and mystery elements.

Several times while reading this book I thought to myself: “Where is this story going and who is the main character?” I got the impression that the author was much more interested in creating interesting characters that you don’t meet every day than making a long cohesive story. The best part of the story is learning how each character is connected and how they have influenced each other. This is a different type of book but if you love character driven fiction it’s a great read.

The characters are complex and no one acts like you think they should act. For instance Melville may be a vampire but he has no fangs and can go out in daylight. He’s immortal but he’s just trying to live a normal life like everyone else except he has memories going back to the 1800’s. Some of my favorite scenes in this book had Melville walking down streets and remembering how that street was in the past and mourning the people who use to live there who have long since died. You feel for these characters even when they’re doing bad things. My favorite character was Catherine because everyone around her thinks she’s stupid and she uses this to her advantage. Catherine puts on an act for the general public and knows how to get what she wants, such as the knowledge to build a bomb to get revenge against the man who killed her son.

While reading Scouse Gothic I found myself thinking of the movie Pulp Fiction. That movie was different from other movies of the time, plot wasn’t as important as creating memorable characters and putting them in odd situations. Scouse Gothic is the same way, all of the characters are fascinating and they all brought a different element to the novel. Scouse Gothic has the feel of a great ongoing series and I’m happy to see that there are two other books in the series.… (lisätietoja)