Gillespie

"Again, this feels to me on the cusp of the 19th century and 20th century, towards the end of the phase of Scottish literature dominated by what are known as Kailyard (‘cabbage-patch’) novels. Those were set in rural Scotland, often in small communities where there was a minister, a schoolmaster, a shopkeeper and so on. These characters all had their foibles, fell out with each other, made friends again… There were various stock characters that appeared over and over. By and large, they were sentimental novels that didn’t challenge the reader too much. Happy or sad, they usually ended up making the reader feel good. Gillespie is completely different. It came a few years after George Douglas Brown’s The House With the Green Shutters , and these two novels seemed to set out to break the mould of Kailyard writing. John MacDougall Hay was a minister in Tarbert, Loch Fyne, and the novel is set in a town called Brieston—very closely modelled on Tarbert. It’s a dark story of this man, Gillespie, who becomes an arch-capitalist merchant who has everybody in thrall to him, including his wife and children. He’s a complete monster. He’s fascinating and horrible. “ Jekyll and Hyde is almost a template for what’s going to happen in the 20th century, when there is a shift from panoramic novels of social life, towards fiction about the internal life of individuals” You’re gripped by him, and the fact that the other characters are determined to get vengeance upon him at some point. It’s interesting that it was written by a Church of Scotland minister; you can see that this man Gillespie is riding for a fall. It’s not expressed quite in this way, but he’s supping with the devil. There’s only one outcome, and of course it ends with a ghastly tragedy. It’s so dark, but gripping. And there’s some really, really brilliant dialogue there in Scots, again. Gillespie is a manipulative, scheming bully. When I read it for the first time, I thought: I didn’t realise you could write a book that was so dark, about such an unpleasant person, and yet have the reader absolutely hooked. It’s quite a big book, too. The size of a Walter Scott book, maybe 450 pages. But it’s worth getting hold of if you can."