The Mash House by Alan Gillespie
Cullrothes, in the Scottish Highlands, where Innes hides a terrible secret from his girlfriend Alice, a gorgeous, cheating, lying schoolteacher. In the same village, Donald is the aggressive distillery owner, who floods the country with narcotics alongside his single malt; when his son goes missing, he becomes haunted by an anonymous American investor intent on purchasing the Cullrothes Distillery by any means necessary. Schoolgirl Jessie is trying to get the grades to escape to the mainland, while Grandpa counts the days left in his life.
This is a place where mountains are immense and the loch freezes in winter. A place with only one road in and out. With long storms and furious midges and a terrible phone signal. The police are compromised the journalists are scum, and the innocent folk of Cullrothes tangle themselves in a fermenting barrel of suspicion, malice and lies...
About the author.
Alan Gillespie is a writer and teacher from Fife, Scotland. He has studied at the Universities of Stirling, Glasgow and Strathclyde. His articles and stories have appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Herald, Northwords Now, New Writing Scotland, and elsewhere. In 2011 he was awarded the Scottish Emerging Writer’s residency at Cove Park. The Mash House is his first novel.
Review
This is an exciting debut from a new and more importantly, talented Scottish writer. His ability to put such dark humour into a book was uncanny. For such an idyllic setting it rippled with menace, felt extremely claustrophobic and it just hit with the punches from the get go.
Cullrothes feels like the end of the world. A ferry and an hour drive from the mainland, it relies on the local distillery for it's economy and community. But when the self appointed ‘laird’ is a bad apple you find it's the whole tree that is rotten. Plus, it ain't just malt in those barrels - he uses the distillery as a front for his drug business. When his son Bobby goes missing and an American tries to buy out the business he feels as if he is losing grip.
Apart from Jessie and her Grandpa, I don't think there is anyone else who lives in the area that is not evil. God that opening chapter is going to haunt me for a long time, its cruelty set the scene for the rest of the book. I believe I have never had such a visceral reaction to a character before. She is just pure evil. Thankfully, scenes like this are counter-balanced by the love and devotion that Jessie shows her Grandpa. I also was moved by the wee memorial that takes place at the school. Basically, it just shows life. Life is a myriad of connections and stories intertwined. No one area is going to be good or bad - though I all tempted to say this fell on to the bad side of life. This was a great character-driven narrative and they are some of the most colourfully drawn I have read for a long time.
I can see this book doing very well at Bloody Scotland in September. Read it before then and you can be one of the smug ones who can go ‘well I knew about it before it won!’
