Book description
Introduced by Roderick Watson. Garry Forbes comes home from the
trenches, suffering from shellshock, to find a local girl claiming to
have been engaged to one of his dead friends. He sets out to expose her
fantasies by cleaving to his simple view of reality. The truths of inner
experience, however, are more elusive and fluid than he ever imagined
and he is compelled to acquire a more subtle outlook on life and people.
The tiny community of Fetter-Rothie, with all its gossip and petty
scandal, is delightfully realised in every detail. Yet Nan Shepherd
builds a novel of great penetration and power within this small canvas,
animated by images of light, darkness and space, and always informed by
a Chekhovian eye for the humour, terror and strangeness to be found in
everyday life. Nan Shepherd's first novel The Quarry Wood was highly
acclaimed when re-issued as a Canongate Classic. This, her second novel,
is considered to be her masterpiece.
