Crow Road by Iain Banks

On this very dreary afternoon, we settled down to tackle 'Crow Road' (1992) by Iain Banks, although it wasn't quite the cheery book we needed. We found it overly long: 'baggy' as one of us labelled it. It could, at least, have had the chunks cut out which didn't feel like they fitted into the book at all - but maybe they did fit in.

Everyone found the multiple, meandering story lines and erratic timelines very confusing. And as for the characters!! There are so many that one member tried putting together a 'Crow Road' family tree, and several more of us wished the book had come with one despite, as a rule, hating family trees at the start of books. The characters could easily have been reduced in number: some seemed to have been killed off simply because Banks didn't quite know what else to do with them.

The writing is undeniably clever (although that can occasionally slide into feeling contrived) and he uses humour, often black (such as the opening sentence "It was the day my grandmother exploded"), to engage his readers.... And boy, did we need engaging as the actual 'story' (a murder mystery), didn't start until around the half-way mark.

The high points were the descriptions of Scottish landscapes, the protagonist's father, Kenneth, telling entertaining but revealing stories to the children, and some interesting underlying philosophical 'stuff' about belief in a higher power and purpose, and in life after death.

For all that, 'Crow Road' does end in a fairly upbeat way, and somehow got 8 thumbs-up out of ten - although at least 4 of those were grudgingly given.

We really are not saying "avoid Banks' writing". He was advised by his publisher to write a book a year, and he was certainly prolific, publishing a total of 30 books. There is, therefore, a lot of choice. But 'Crow Road' is probably not the best place to start. Maybe try his highly acclaimed first novel 'The Wasp Factory' (1984), a dark thriller. And there are, of course, his sci-fi books written as Iain M Banks.

To round off this year of varied reading, our final 2024 book is 'The Silent Patient' by Alex Michaelides. This gripping psychological thriller will be entertainingly dissected by us on Tuesday 17 December in the Library. Why not join us? There are likely to be mince pies...