I was blessed and nourished in reading Merryn Glover’s remarkable new novel Of Stone and Sky. It’s set in Badenoch where the author lives and which she knows and loves intimately.
This complex, exquisitely written and meticulously-structured work covers almost a century. It deals with love, community, family, the legacies of the past; but also with alcoholism, tragedy, betrayal and loss. It’s immensely readable – and overflowing with grace.
Of Stone and Sky is a significant addition to Scottish literature, a book which gives and keeps on giving. Several Scottish novels use religious characters to explore the negative impact of Calvinism, but here there’s much more – a faith which is positive and creative.
The novel tells the story of Colvin (is there an echo of ‘Calvin’ in this name?) – a shepherd whose efforts to sustain his sheep farm are beset by struggles with the elements, the landowner, and shadows from the past. He disappears, and family and community struggle to cope with his loss.
In the following months 12 ‘signs’, Colvin’s possessions are found in different parts of the Strath and we, along with those who were left, puzzle over what they, and the place and manner of their finding reveal about the shepherd who has gone.
The novel’s richly-imagined characters include Agnes, Colvin’s mother – the sweetness of the old prayers she treasures haunts the book; Sorley, his younger brother, the returning prodigal; Alex, his sensitive, troubled son; Mo, his almost-sister whose past woundedness help heal family and community whether in pulpit or pub, who is called to lead her people to the Promised Land.
Speyside itself is a character and so, it seems to me is God the Three in One, seen in the natural beauties of the Strath, joy, music, the loveliness of lives meeting, and in hearts awakening to humility and hope.
Some characters choose to go ‘onwards and upwards, pursuing materially-focussed routes to satisfy inner yearnings. Others go ‘higher up and deeper in’ to the Narnia of the Cairngorm peaks.
Says Mo of her coming to the ministry ‘the call never left me, the Presence. Not so much a booming great voice or a pillar of fire, but more like a stray bird that turned up and wouldn’t leave…..So I listened and followed its sweet song.’
Mo’s church stands on a knoll which is one of the ‘thin places’ where the veil between heaven and earth is ‘slight as a bees wing.’ A woman, not a believer, sits in deep peace by the window with the Celtic cross and finds herself praying. And I think Merryn’s story is a thin place. As we read, we may see the Good Shepherd coming to meet us.
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![Of Stone and Sky (English Edition) por [Merryn Glover]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51j0cTwZ6tL._SY346_.jpg)
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Principais avaliações de outros países
John Dempster
An outstanding piece of work
Avaliado no Reino Unido em 4 de junho de 2021I. Turnbull
Read this in the Cairngorms if you can
Avaliado no Reino Unido em 9 de julho de 2021Jonathan Wilson
The one book you should read this year.
Avaliado no Reino Unido em 19 de junho de 2021
