Rubbish! ( )

Das Leben in einem sterbenden Bergarbeiterdorf in Schottland ist trostlos, wie auch das Leben der ledigen Mutter Mary Miller, die im Ort als Hexe verschrien ist.

Ian Rankin published this book when he was 26 and still a graduate student at the University of Edinburgh. It only sold a few hundred copies at the time but it confirmed him as an author and he soon published his first Rebus mystery. This book is a reissue of the original so it's not a valuable first edition but it is very interesting to me as a long time fan of Ian Rankin's. I recently saw him at McNally Robinson Booksellers answering questions and telling stories. He is a great raconteur as well as a great writer.

This book is set in a small former mining town in Fife. Mary Miller had a traumatic experience when she was young when she fell into the "hot burn", a runoff of chemicals and water from the mine. She woke up the next day with her hair turned completely white. (This is one example of Rankin's immaturity as a writer; hair cannot turn white overnight and a more seasoned writer would have checked before putting that in a book.) From that time on the local people thought Mary was a witch especially when one of the boys responsible for her fall into the burn died in the mine as the result of a fireball. When Mary was only 15 she became pregnant and gave birth to a son called Sandy. Rumours abound as to who was the father of the boy but Mary never tells. The main action of this book takes place when Sandy is fifteen. He falls in love with a gypsy girl who strings him along with stories about how horrible her brother and her aunt are to her. Mary is also dating, the first time since she became pregnant. Her boyfriend is a teacher at her son's school. The two struggle through the ups and downs of relationships while the villagers gossip about both of them.

As Rankin admits in his introduction to the book, the fictional town was heavily drawn from his own home town. He doesn't say if any of Sandy's experiences are based on his own but there does seem to be quite a bit of detail that only a teenage boy could experience.

In the final analysis this is not the best example of Rankin's writing craft but it is certainly better than a lot of first works. ( )

In een troosteloos stadje in Fife waar de mijnen inmiddels gesloten zijn en waar niets voor in de plaats is gekomen, voedt een ongehuwde moeder haar zoon op. Door een samenloop van omstandigheden heeft de moeder de naam gekregen een heks te zijn. Ze wordt als buitenstaander beschouwd. Als de zoon verliefd wordt op een zigeunermeisje, wordt het er niet beter op. Er is ook tussen moeder en zoon, veel ongezegd gebleven. De zoon komt tot inzicht in zijn eigen situatie en kan dan, en dat is nodig ook, zijn moeder uit handen van een wraakzuchtige vader bevrijden.

I can't fault any part of the writing in this book. The characters are haunting, the writing beautiful, but it's a rather strange story. Strange how? I'm not sure I can explain it. The only reason I didn't give a full five stars is because the ending was kind of disappointing for me. I like a full resolution in a novel-length story. Shorts or flash fiction, I don't mind a bit of ambiguity, but I like more of a payoff for reading more than 100 pages. This felt...not quite over. Perhaps that was his intention. As a reader, it fell flat for me.

However, I'm eager to read another book by Rankin. As I said, the writing is beautiful. I fell into the style and voice almost immediately. It was like wrapping up in a favorite old blanket or sinking your feet into a perfectly worn-in pair of shoes. I haven't felt that immediate comfort with an author's writing in a long time.

Do I recommend this book? Yes and no. I'm betting if you start with a later novel, you'll be blown away. This is one of his first published works if what I've read is correct.

Anyway, I have another waiting for me right now, so I'll just dive in again. ( )