Electric Brae: A Modern Romance

I read this book on a return visit to the `auld country' - the first in almost thirty years. Scotland has certainly changed and so have her writers. Greig's writing blends that granite dourness of the male Scot with a lyrical beauty that is as haunting as it is unusual. The book form of the work is complex, with the reader having to assume different perspectives and try to appreciate different personalities. In particular, as a Scot who grew up in the sixties and left in the seventies, this work has a quality that is both familiar and strange. I can see much of myself and my contemporaries in these characters, however the writing is broad enough and distanced enough to allow for these introspection not to interfere with what is an excellent story.I am really glad that I found this book and this writer. I have purchased other of his novels and have found his style consistently poetic and memorable. Beautiful writing... At a personal level, I found the use of Scots (which is not too daunting for the non-Scots speaker) just great! It was a powerful feeling to have that wonderful evocation of people and places that are so different and yet so familiar.With people like Andrew Greig around I am very optimistic about the future of writing in Scotland. A really wonderfully crafted and skilfully executed book. If this is what has been happening in Scotland in the last thirty years I will make sure to come back sooner next time!

I love this book. It's a tough romance, about loyalty and friendship as much as passion and betrayal. It's set all over Scotland, from the Borders to the Orkney and Shetland isles, and in some way it's about the identity of the country as well as that of the central characters. It's got a great central woman, Kim - tough, fragile, committed in at least two senses - who really runs the show and creates these amazing artworks and display boxes. If you're interested in climbing, passionate love, being a parent or having them, landscape, loss and moments of beauty - this one's for you! I've read it so often and never tired of it.

Building a complex relationship among four main characters, Greig's book works perfectly. Using a wonderful method of revealing the past and the present in perfect symmetry, I found myself needing to know if Graeme lived or died, if the 'bairn' was his or Jimmy's. Or somebody else's entirely. The subtitle "a modern romance" cannot do this book justice, as it is a wonderful story of friends and lovers, more than romance and more than a modern tale. Read it...