Review of "The Books of the Incarceration of the Lady Grange" by Andrew Drummond, pub. CreateSpace I

In all Drummond's novels so far, the narrative voice has been key. He tends to choose eccentric, sardonic character-narrators who observe events from the sidelines or get caught up in them in ways they cannot control. They have, however, all been recognisably human… so far. This one calls herself the Cherub of Desire, and though she can take human form she seems to be a spirit who sails, in a globe-shaped sphere, around her assigned dominion of the Hebrides in the year 1739:

To the GOOD LORD the whole of the earth encompass'd so on so forth to each Cherub a Dominion for to watch o'er in which to seek out men to exact tribute and to punish as she sees fit to the Cherub of Desire all that is desirable in the Hebridean Sea.

And here we come to the feature that may put some readers off: the Cherub's manner of forming sentences is not conventional; not only has she, understandably, an 18th-century cadence, she has little time for punctuation. Personally I found I could adjust to it fairly easily, possibly because I have long been a fan of Don Marquis's archy, the poetic cockroach whose inability to work the caps key of a typewriter had a somewhat similar effect. But it's undeniable that some readers cannot handle unconventional use of language and that the novel may be less commercially attractive as a result. I don't know if this is why this novel has been brought out by a self-publishing platform rather than by Polygon, who published his first four books for adults (he writes for children too). If Polygon did turn it down on those grounds, I would urge them to reconsider, and remember that Riddley Walker's unconventional spelling didn't stop it becoming a cult.

Shipwrecked on St Kilda, the Cherub finds her affairs becoming embroiled with those of Rachel Chiesley Erskine, Lady Grange, kidnapped from Edinburgh and marooned on the distant island for being an embarrassment to her husband. All Drummond's novels so far have some basis in Scottish history (even the one set in Russia) and the Lady Grange strand is factual, as are the two letters she wrote from St Kilda, though they were smuggled to her lawyer in Edinburgh by human agency rather than, as here, by the Cherub, who agrees to take them and have a holiday on the mainland at the same time. Thus begins a picaresque which, since she does not exactly go by the most direct route, takes in quite a lot of 18th-century Scotland:

At Allt-coire-uchdachan we stop for the sun is at her highest in the sky the red grouse cackles in the heather there is a fine bridge o'er the road where we may sit take our ease breathe in the parfums of the mountain of the bog of the heather taste the very air upon our tongue heaven upon the lids of our eyes then we mount ever higher. From each turn of the road we gaze down upon the deepest lochs of Loch-aber the vast landskip of Scotland stretched out before us there are distant peaks huge hills fertile glens the precipices drop all around us into terrible foaming cascades truly this is a prospect so magnificent none could with-stand it. We pause at the very heights of the mountain for to take our fill of the wideness of Scotland

The Cherub is just as forcibly impressed, though in a different way, by 18th-century Edinburgh with its mix of opulence and urban squalor, and by the far bleaker poverty of St Kilda. What makes her an intriguing narrator is her blend of caustic wit and a certain outsider perspective which comes of not being human and hence not always understanding what she sees as a human narrator would.

I am not, yet, 100% sure what to make of this novel (I am tempted to quote its end, which is unexpectedly moving, but shall refrain because I don't think that would be fair to the new reader). If I had to, I would theorise that the notion of "incarceration" in something other than a cell, and not necessarily even a physical space, is central to it – Lady Grange, for one, is imprisoned as much by her own nature as anything else. But I shall have to re-read it, and the one thing I am sure of is that I will, as I have all his other novels, several times.

Here beginneth a heartfelt plea to publishers. The man is unclassifiable: his novels are by turns satire, picaresque, realist, fantasy, historical, and I suspect this may make him harder to market. What they always are is unusually well written, thought-provoking, entertaining and above all original. He says himself that he began writing because he couldn't find the kind of book he wanted to read, and it's a fact that his novels are not quite like anything else out there. They are what I want to read, but unlike him I don't feel equipped to write it and the reason I read more history books than novels is that most contemporary novels are bloody dull and predictable. It worries me that he appears to be self-publishing, because he's worth better and will never attain the readership he deserves without someone to do the marketing. If you're thinking short-term, Mr Publisher, please remember that Dr Johnson, for once, made an awful howler when he said "Nothing odd will do; Tristram Shandy did not last". Anyone considering awards for Scottish writers would do well to bear it in mind, too.