HAME

by Annalena McAfee

Hame, n. Scottish form of ‘home’: a valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin

In the wake of the breakdown of her relationship, Mhairi McPhail dismantles her life in New York and moves with her 9-year-old daughter, Agnes, to the remote Scottish island of Fascaray. Mhairi has been commissioned to write a biography of the late Bard of Fascaray, Grigor McWatt, a cantankerous poet with an international reputation.

But who was Grigor McWatt? Details of his past – his tough childhood and his war years as a commando – are elusive, and there is evidence of a mysterious love affair which Mhairi is determined to investigate. As she struggles to adapt to her new life, and put her own troubled past behind her, Mhairi begins to unearth the astonishing secret history of the poet regarded by many as the custodian of Fascaray’s – and Scotland’s – soul.

A dazzling, kaleidoscope of a novel, Hame layers extracts from Mhairi’s journal, Grigor’s letters and poems and his evocative writing about the island into a compelling narrative that explores identity, love and the universal quest for home.

Genres: Fiction, Scotland, Poetry, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature, British Literature

577 pages, Hardcover

First published February 9, 2017

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) I previously knew of Annalena McAfee only as Mrs. Ian McEwan, though she has a distinguished literary background: she founded the Guardian Review and edited it for six years, was Arts and Literary Editor of the Financial Times, and is the author of multiple children’s books and one previous novel for adults, The Spoiler (2011).

Well, anyone who reads Hame will be saying “Ian who?” as this is on such a grand scale compared to anything McEwan has ever attempted. The subtitle, “The Fascaray Archives,” gives an idea of how thorough McAfee means to be: the life of fictional poet Grigor McWatt is her way into everything that forms the Scottish identity. Her invented island of Fascaray is a carefully constructed microcosm of Scotland from ancient times to today. I loved the little glimpses of recent history, like the referendum on independence and a Donald Trump figure, billionaire “Archie Tupper,” bulldozing an environmentally sensitive area to build his new golf course (this really happened, in Aberdeenshire in 2012).

Narrator Mhairi McPhail arrives on Fascaray in August 2014, her nine-year-old daughter Agnes in tow. She’s here to oversee the opening of a new museum, edit a seven-volume edition of McWatt’s magnum opus, The Fascaray Compendium (a 70-year journal detailing the island’s history, language, flora, fauna and customs), and complete a critical biography of the poet. Over the next four months she often questions the feasibility of her multi-strand project. She also frets about her split from Marco, whom she left back in New York City after their separate infidelities. And her rootlessness – she’s Canadian via Scotland but has spent a lot of time in the States, giving her a mixed-up heritage and accent – is a constant niggle.

Mhairi’s narrative sections share space with excerpts from her biography of McWatt and extracts from McWatt’s own writing: The Fascaray Compendium, newspaper columns, letters to on-again, off-again lover Lilias Hogg, and Scots translations of famous poets from Blake to Yeats. We learn of key events from the island’s history through Mhairi’s biography and McWatt’s prose, including ongoing tension between lairds and crofters, Finnverinnity House being used as a Special Ops training school during World War II, a lifeboat lost in a gale in the 1970s, and the way the fishing industry is now ceding to hydroelectric power.

The balance between the alternating elements isn’t quite right – sections from Mhairi’s contemporary diary seem to get shorter as the novel goes along, such that it feels like there’s not enough narrative to anchor the book. Faced with yet more Scots poetry and vocabulary lists, or passages from Mhairi’s dry biography, it’s mighty tempting to skim.

That’s a shame, as the novel contains some truly lovely writing, particularly in McWatt’s nature observations:

In July and August, on rare days of startling and sustained heat, dragonflies as blue as the cloudless skies shimmer over cushions of moss by the burn while the midges, who abhor direct sunlight, are nowhere to be seen. Out to sea, somnolent groups of whales pass like cortèges of cruise ships and around them dolphins and porpoises joyously arc and dip as if stitching the ocean’s silken canopy of turquoise, gentian and cobalt.

For centuries male Fascaradians have sailed in the autumn, at the time of the ripe barley and the fruiting buckthorn, to hunt the plump young solan geese or gannets – the guga – near their nesting sites on the uninhabited rock pinnacles of Plodda and Grodda. No true Fascaradian can suffer vertigo since the scaling of these granite towers is done without the aid of mountaineers’ crampons or picks.

“Hame” means home in Scots – like in McWatt’s claim to fame, the folk-pop song “Hame tae Fascaray” – and themes of home and identity are strong here. The novel asks to what extent identity is bound up with a particular country and language, and whether we can craft our own selves. Must the place you come from always be the same as the home you choose? I could relate to Mhairi’s feeling that there’s nowhere she belongs, whether she’s in the bustle of New York or “marooned on a patch of damp peat floating in the North Sea.”

Although the blend of elements initially made me think that this would resemble A.S. Byatt’s Possession, it’s actually more like Rachel Cantor’s Good on Paper, which similarly stars a scholar who’s a single parent to a precocious daughter. In places I was also reminded of the work of Scarlett Thomas, Sara Maitland and Sarah Moss, and there’s even an echo of Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks in the inventories of dialect words.

If you’ve done much traveling in Scotland, an added pleasure of the novel is trying to spot places you’ve been. (I thought I could see traces of Stromness, Orkney; indeed, McWatt reminded me most of Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown.) The comprehensive, archival approach didn’t completely win me over, but I was impressed by the book’s scope and its affectionate portrait of a beloved country. McAfee is of Scots-Irish parentage herself, and you can tell this is a true labor of love, and a cogent tribute.

With thanks to Anna Redman of Harvill Secker for sending a free copy for review.

Originally published with images on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Merry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book was written specifically for me. :D Might be five stars.

(This is a lot more fun if you're interested in history writing, identity, nature writing, poetry, and Scots.)

[Gavin Armour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schottland – dieses kleine, dünn bevölkerte Land am Rande des europäischen Kontinents, arm, stolz, traditionalistisch, geschichtsbewußt, unwirtlich und wunderschön – kam spätestens Mitte der 1980er Jahre durch Hollywood-Filme wie LOCAL HERO (1983) und vor allem HIGHLANDER (1986), der mit Mittelalter-Mythen spielte, zurück auf die kulturelle Landkarte Europas. Das Gälische wurde wieder gepflegt und auch außerhalb Schottlands entdeckt, Folk- und Dudelsackmusik, Whisky, Highlandspiele, die Edinburgher Festspiele und die Bedeutung der Stadt für die europäische Aufklärung, Freiheitsliebe und Rebellentum waren nur einige jener Eigenschaften, die gern auf Schottland projiziert und als größtenteils popkulturelles Erbe des Landes betrachtet wurden. Trotz dauerhaft schlechten Wetters, teuren Unterkünften, bescheidener Infrastruktur und beschwerlicher Anreise rückte dieser Teil Großbritanniens in den Fokus sowohl bei Kulturreisenden wie auch derer, die nach etwas Urwüchsigem, Ursprünglichen suchten, das ein Bedürfnis befriedigen sollte, welches zusehends Ausbruch aus den rundum versicherten Gesellschaften des Nachkriegs-Europas suchte. Schottland bediente diese Bedürfnisse gern, profitierte vom Tourismus, gefiel sich in der Rolle des abgeschieden gelegenen Fantasiereiches und verfolgte dennoch seine ganz eigenen Interessen: Anschluß an Europa und die EU, mehr Unabhängigkeit von England und Westminster, Profitstreben aus dem Nordseeölhandel. Es pflegte aber auch gern die Mythen und Legenden, die aus seiner Geschichte erwuchsen.

Annalena McAfee gelingt es in ihrem Roman HAME (dt.: ZURÜCK NACH FASCARAY; Original erschienen 2017) diesen gesamten Komplex einzufangen und oberflächlich leicht satirisch, in den tieferen Schichten aber vor allem sehr klug, genau und differenziert zu verarbeiten. In einem wilden Potpourri aus Tagebucheinträgen, Ausschnitten aus einer Biographie, Gedichten, Kolumnen und einem Kompendium, das er über Jahrzehnte geschrieben hat, lässt sie das Leben des „Heimatdichters“ Grigor McWatt Revue passieren und anhand dieses Lebens die jüngere Geschichte Schottlands. Dieser Grigor McWatt lebte sechzig Jahre, bis zu seinem Tod im Jahre 2014, auf dem Eiland Fascaray, einer Insel der Hebriden, abgeschieden und dank seiner geographischen Lage – umflutet vom Golfstrom – eine Art Abbild Schottlands en miniature. McWatt seinerseits war ein Nationalist, ein England- und Engländer-Hasser, ein Intellektueller, ein Sprachkundler und Dichter, der klassische schottische, englische und angloamerikanische Gedichte von Walter Scott bis Robert Burns, von Lord Byron bis R.L. Stevenson, von Yeats bis Poe in ‚Scots‘ – jenem komplizierten, in Hunderte Abarten zerfallenden Dialekt, den einige als eigenständige Sprache deklarieren – übersetzte; nachdichtete, wie er selber sich auszudrücken pflegte. In akademischen Kreisen umstritten, wurde er vor allem durch eines seiner wenigen eigenen Poeme berühmt, den Text HAME TAE FASCARY, der vertont und in Dutzenden von Fassungen von einheimischen Barden bis hin zu internationalen Stars wie Bob Dylan interpretiert wurde. McWatt begnn sowohl den Text als auch das Lied schließlich zu hassen, da es ihm Aufmerksamkeit aus der aus seiner Sicht falschen Richtung einbrachte. Wesentlicher war ihm sein Kompendium, in dem er nicht nur die Geschichte Fascarays erschloß, sondern auch allerhand Wesentliches zu Flora und Fauna, den Bewohnern, ihren Beziehungen untereinander und zum Festland, zu Mythen und Legenden zusammentrug und immer wieder auch seiner Abneigung gegen England als Besatzer der schottischen Heimat Ausdruck verlieh. Darüber hinaus war McWatt ein emsiger Kolumnenschreiber für lokale Blätter. In diesen Kolumnen wird seine politische Haltung noch viel deutlicher, hier nahm er regelmäßig Stellung zu tagesaktuellen politischen Fragen und vor allem nutzte er sie immer wieder, um gegen „fremde“ Übernahmen der Insel, die er so liebte, zu agitieren.

Im Jahr 2014 kommt die Kanadierin Mhairi McPhail, die ihr halbes erwachsenes Leben in New York verbracht hat, mit ihrer Tochter Agnes nach Fascaray, um hier als Kuratorin das „Heimaterbemuseum“ aufzubauen und Ende des Jahres zu eröffnen. Zugleich soll sie, die an der Uni bereits kurz über McWatt gearbeitet hatte, eine Biographie und Werkschau des Dichters verfassen. Aus dieser, EINE GRANITBALLADE betitelten, Biographie, sowie aus ihrem Tagebuch, speisen sich die wesentlichen Teile von McAfees Roman. Durchsetzt mit Auszügen von McWatts Kompendium, seinen Nachdichtungen, gelegentlich seinen Kolumnen, erfahren wir anhand dieser Textpassagen, wie McWatt gesehen wurde, wir erfahren von seiner Liebe zu Lilias, die ihn anschmachtete und letztlich nie erhört wurde, von seiner Zurückgezogenheit und davon, wie er, der ursprünglich nicht von der Insel kam, sich diese zueigen machte, aneignete und aus dieser Liebe seine schottische Identität ableitete. Aus den Tagebucheinträgen erfahren wir allerdings wesentlich mehr – Teile der nicht erzählten Geschichte, McPhails Zweifel an ihrer Arbeit, aber auch an ihrer Rolle als Mutter, wir erfahren von ihrer zerbrochenen Beziehung zu Agnes Vater Marco, vom Trennungsschmerz und davon, wie eine kosmopolitische Metropolenbewohnerin sich in der Einöde einlebt und zurecht findet. Angereichert mit Fußnoten, einer Bibliographie, einem Glossar der Begriffe aus dem ‚Scots‘, mit den Originalen der Liedtexte, lokalen Rezepten, die McWatt sammelte, und einer Danksagung, die dem Leser kurze Hinwiese darauf gibt, wie die persönliche Geschichte McPhails weitergegangen ist, hat der Leser einen guten Überblick über die Geschichte Fascarays und seines berühmtesten „Sohnes“.

Tatsächlich ist all dies der Fantasie der Autorin Annalena McAfee entsprungen. Weder gibt es die Insel Fascaray, noch ihren Heimatdichter Grigor McWatt. In einem äußerst detailreichen Roman erfindet die Autorin die gesamte Geschichte um den Dichter und seine Wahlheimat im hohen Norden. Es gelingt ihr dabei, jene Merkmale von Identität, die gerade wieder solche Konjunktur haben in der politischen Diskussion – Sprache, Geschichte, Werte, Traditionen – höchst geschickt so miteinander zu verweben, das dabei einerseits ein gut lesbares Buch, das durchaus seine Spannungsmomente hat, zu komponieren, zugleich aber ein nie bösartiger, doch durchaus ironischer Blick auf jene Konstruktion gelingt, die Menschen sich basteln, um sich ihrer selbst zu vergewissern. Übertriebene Heimatliebe, der Mythos, der in seinem Kern immer Verfälschung bedeutet, den wir möglicherweise aber brauchen, um mit jenen Seiten unseres Wesens und unserer Geschichte klar zu kommen, die ein weniger gutes Licht auf uns werfen, und die Sprache als Bindemittel, um uns einen kulturellen Mantel umzuhängen, einen Rahmen zu schaffen, der das Mindestmaß von Einheit zu garantieren scheint, werden dabei ebenso ab- und äußerst klug behandelt, wie auch durchaus liebenswerte Eigenheiten, Macken und Manierismen, die wir brauchen, um uns manchmal etwas größer zu machen, uns manchmal etwas besser dastehen zu lassen, als wir sind. So ist es das eigentliche Verdienst dieses Romans, eine Figur zu erschaffen, eine Person absolut glaubwürdig zum Leben zu erwecken, die uns sowohl in ihren privaten Belangen, als auch in ihrem öffentlichen Wirken vollkommen überzeugt.

Dieser Grigor McWatt ist alles andere als sympathisch, seine nationalistischen Ansichten sind manchmal ausgesprochen reaktionär, dabei verkitscht und von einer Romantik getragen, die es in sich hat. Sein Leben ist geprägt von Widersprüchen und – späte Entwicklung zwecks Spannungssteigerung – mindestens einem großen Geheimnis. Zugleich hat der Mann aber einen hellen Verstand, ist gebildet, großzügig, trägt durchaus empathische Züge und verfügt über ein waches soziales Bewußtsein, zumindest, was seine unmittelbare Umgebung und seine Landsleute betrifft. Ohne ihn je in eine rechts-reaktionäre Ecke zu stellen, gelingt es McAfee, McWatt in seiner ganzen allzu menschlichen Widersprüchlichkeit aufleben zu lassen und dabei vor allem auf sprachlicher Ebene den schmalen Grat aufzuzeigen, auf dem sich bewegt, wer (übertriebene) Heimatliebe empfindet, sie ausstellt und zugleich um die Beschränkungen weiß, denen er unterliegt. McWatt ist in gewisser Weise ein Hochstapler, ist seine Dichtung doch bestenfalls Nach-Dichtung, seine Liebe zu Fascaray zumindest angeeignet, stammt er doch nicht von der Insel, und sein Hass auf alles Englische übertrieben bis zur Karikatur, gelegentlich gar obsessiv. Und doch wird hier deutlich, wie sich diese Widersprüchlichkeiten oftmals bedingen, wie das eine ohne das andere nicht zu haben ist.

Konterkariert wird das Leben dieses zurückgezogenen Kauz durch McPhail selbst, die in gewisser Weise genau jenen Stadtflüchtlingen entspricht, die nach – wenn auch bescheidener – Karriere und gescheiterten Beziehungen das Landleben und dessen Vorzüge meinen erkunden zu müssen. Obwohl dieser Aspekt des Romans gegen die Figur des Dichters und dessen Leben abfällt – und das vielleicht auch soll, sogar muß – gelingt McAfee auch hier mit genauem Blick eine hervorragende Beschreibung postmoderner Lebensentwürfe. Das Zweifeln an sich selbst, das Changieren zwischen Übermut und Selbstbefragung, das Infragestellen der eigenen professionellen wie privaten Fähigkeiten, welches dann umschlägt in Aggression gegen Mitarbeiter und sogar die eigene Familie – McAfee lässt auch ihre Forscherin nicht gerade sympathisch erscheinen und zeigt sie als typische Vertreterin genau dieser Lebensentwürfe. Entsprechend postmodern mutet ihr Buch dann auch selbst an. Es erinnert an Werke wie BOY WONDER (1988), James Robert Bakers komplett erfundene aber ebenso als Sachbuch getarnte Biographie des Hollywood-Tycoons Shark Trager. MacAfee, die eine ausgesprochen erfolgreiche Karriere als Londoner Kulturjournalistin hinter sich hat, weiß sehr genau, wovon sie erzählt, sie versteht aber ebenso genau, ihr stilistisches Instrumentarium zu nutzen.

So ist hier ein manchmal witziger, gelegentlich ergreifender und selten auch trauriger Roman gelungen, der den Schottland-Hype ein wenig auf den Arm nimmt, zugleich aber großes Verständnis für die spezifischen Belange dieses kleinen Landes am Rande des europäischen Kontinents, für die Eigenheiten seiner Bewohner und den gelegentlich überbordenen Nationalismus als identitätsstiftende Klammer eines im Kern armen Volkes aufweist, das wenig ökonomische Mittel besitzt, aber über eine reiche und volle Geschichte verfügt.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admit to two personal reasons for reading this book. 1) I am going to Scotland next year, and I wanted to get some insight on the culture, geography, and anything that would be helpful. 2) Annalena McAfee is married to one of my favorite authors, so was hoping the electric charge is in the very air of their home! I am still glad I read it, as it certainly did raise my Scotland IQ from zero to novice-at-arm’s-reach. The story itself, however, never did have lift off for me. The fictional Bard of Fascaray and the fictional Isle of Fascaray demonstrated the author’s glittering imagination and intelligence for creating this microcosm of setting and character, but I didn’t emotionally connect to the story.

The intertextual story alternates between past and present. Mhairi McPhail, academic writer from Brooklyn (by way of Canada), whose marriage to Marco is on the rocks, receives a grant to research her beloved (fictional) Scottish poet, the bard of Fascaray, Grigor McWatt. Mhairi and Marco both had torrid affairs that I can’t imagine happening around their nine-year-old daughter, Agnes. For a chance to escape and recoup some stability away from Marco, Mhairi takes Agnes to Fascaray to write a full bio on the hard-drinking, curmudgeonly, English-hating poet that moved to the island after serving in WW II.

The narrative is divided between Mhairi and Agnes; her research writing titled “The Reimagining of Grigor McWatt;” extracts from the Bard’s editorial column in a newspaper called “The Fascary Compendium;” and poems by many, such as Keats, Robert Louis Stevenson, Percy Shelley, and others, translated into McWatt’s Scots language. Moreover, there are pages devoted to lists of Scots words, such as words describing clouds: berk, goog, thwankin and many more, or words describing wind: attery, bensill, blaud, nizzer (and many more), words describing snow: feefle, fyole, pewlin, sneesl, etc etc, as well as words describing flowers, fog, rain, and on and on. Also tucked inside are recipes, a glossary, and a fictional bibliography relating to McWatt's writings.

The drama of the tale focuses on Mhairi attempting to get a factual account of McWatt’s personal life, collected from often unreliable narrators (alive and dead), letters from a lover, extracts from other research, and the collectibles left behind (he died an old man not long before). There are missing pieces that are salient to uncover if Mhairi is to write a thorough and comprehensive story about this enigmatic man’s life. Some of it is comic, like a song McWatt composed off the top of his head in 20 minutes time, but turned out to be the most famous of his work, recorded over and over again by the likes of Bob Dylan and other famous musicians. But McWatt bristled at that song, and how it eclipsed all his “better” work.

My problem with the story is that McWatt, although a colorful individual, didn’t lure me in. Even after 577 pages! He never became more than a two-dimensional character to me. Mhairi’s life was somewhat derivative, a common tale told with a different setting. The climax was anti-climactic and the ending was too pat. However, I don’t want to steer readers away, as this is only my opinion, and could be chalked up to reader error, or my failure to get involved. McAffee is a brainy writer, but this esoteric novel left me wanting. Unfortunately, I never felt at HAME with this book (Scots word for home). However, three stars (instead of two) for its intelligence and wild, under-your-skin, poetic raw, bald, bleak beauty of the setting.

[Victoria (Eve's Alexandria)]

My first DNF of 2017, and a great shame because on the basis of the blurb this should have been right up my street.

Mhairi McPhail is a New Yorker of Scottish ancestry with a penchant for eccentric biographies. After the breakdown of her relationship she accepts a job on the remote Hebridean island of Fascaray and moves there with her 9 year old daughter Agnes. She has been commissioned to write the biography of 'the bard of Fascaray', Grigor Watt, a recluse who first came to the island as a trainee Special Forces operative in the 1940s. With full access to his house and archives, including several unpublished manuscripts, she sets about uncovering his life. The publisher promises us 'a dazzling kaleidoscope of a novel' that explores love, identity and the universal quest for home.

I didn't get along with it at all - not the writing, not the structure, not the characters. I'll say why but first some caveats.

1. I gave up after 75 pages of a 592 page novel, so my judgement is obviously limited, and
2. I read this as an ARC from Netgalley on my Kindle and the formatting was very poor. Footnotes got lost in the text, lines of poems were all run together. I realise this may have impacted on my reading experience.

Those things said I think I got a pretty good taste of McAfee's style. Structurally the book is quite strange: the majority of the pages I read are given over to long extracts from Mhairi's biography in progress and McWatt's unpublished history of Fascaray. In a straight non-fictional style we get a lot of detail about the flora and fauna, bird life and customs of this imaginary island. It's fluid but bland and seems to lead nowhere. We get some original poems and letters too, which are cleverly done but add to the world building and the atmosphere rather than the story. The present day action itself is told in very brief chapters with Mhairi and Agnes, the only characters we are introduced to in 75 pages. These are less convincing than the non-fictional stuff and McAfee seems self conscious in the contemporary voice. The dialogue is stilted and unreal, and I found Mhairi grating and uncompelling.

This adds up to a complete lack of momentum in the early pages of a long novel. It gives no clues as to the kind of book you're reading: a mystery? A romance? Nothing happens to push you toward the answer and there is no promise of anything happening either. It feels like a long road to nowhere particular.

I was already on the verge of quitting when a flippant aside gave me the final push. In a throwaway flashback trans women are mocked as 'he-brides' for a cheap joke about a mispronunciation of Hebrides. I have no tolerance whatsoever for that kind of punchline. That, combined with everything else, was all the permission I needed to set it aside.

[The Library Lady · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps because both the author and her spouse are bright lights of the literary world (rolls eyes), her editor was timid in editing this. Too bad, because this book is a mess.

We have Mhari, an unhappy whiner, who to me must have fit better into the Brooklyn hipster scene than she thinks she did (rolls eyes again), stranding herself and her rather twee 9 year old daughter on the isolated Scottish island her parents fled long ago for Canada.She is there to research the life of a "poet" who came to the island many years ago and has recently died, and to set up a museum in his memory.

So we get lots of Mhari whining about the work and the island and the islanders, while she mostly neglects her daughter. This tale is relieved (really just broken up) by the life story of the poet and his mysterious love life, endless lists he made of the wildlife he noted on the island, pages of Scottish words (despite there being a glossary in the back), and his poems. But they really are not HIS poems, they are famous works he rendered into Scottish!

The best part of this book are the poet's narrative of the island's history, and show what a great little novel the author might have produced instead of this lumpy dish of porridge. It is topped by a pat, predictable ending where the villagers suddenly all rally around Mhari, and there is a wonderful party and a happy ever after afterword. And as a final ick, the bibliography that follows mixes real and fake books.

Nae guid, lads and lassies. This book is nae guid.

[Sarag22 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Con quanta creatività, eleganza e ironia Annalena McAfee esplora in questa sua opera un tema complesso come l'identità. La protagonista del romanzo decide di tornare nella piccola isola della Scozia da cui la sua famiglia è originaria, avendo accettato l'incarico di curare l'istituzione di un museo dedicato al bardo dell'isola, il poeta difensore della lingua scozzese e delle tradizioni dell'isola Grigor Mc Watt, sul quale scrive una biografia. Nel romanzo si alternano così i capitoli dedicati alle vicende e riflessioni della protagonista e della sua vivace bambina, la biografia del poeta, le sue poesie, brani delle sui suoi articoli, appunti e della storia dell'isola. Tutto è immaginario, a cominciare dalla Fascaray del titolo, eppure tutto è reale.
Molto interessante è la descrizione del microcosmo dell'isola, dalla natura alle tradizioni, alle particolarità linguistiche (gli elenchi di parole scozzesi per indicare le condizioni atmosferiche vale il libro) e della storia della Scozia. Si resta sorpresi nell'apprendere che fino ai primi anni 2000 in isole come quella descritta erano in vigore assurde regole feudali, che non si comprende come abbiano potuto resistere così a lungo.
L'autrice ci pone di fronte a una domanda, che forse oggi è ancora di più di attualità: cos'è l'identità di una persona, di un popolo, di un luogo? La protagonista approda sull'isola quando la sua personale identità è in forte crisi, non solo per la rottura del suo legame sentimentale, ma anche perché, in fondo, ovunque sia stata si è sempre sentita in qualche modo non autentica. Figlia di genitori emigrati per sottrarsi alle origini scozzesi, ragazza che ha rinunciato al suo accento per accedere agli studi, giovane donna che si butta nella New York delle trasgressioni, in cui deve nascondere il suo amore per la disciplina e il lavoro, si trova ad essere una donna senza radici e senza approdo. Nel contatto con la terra natia cerca delle risposte, che, quando arriveranno, saranno del tutto inattese. L'identità ha, infatti, forse più a che fare con la scelta di quanto siamo inclini a credere.

[Lenna Lowen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Firstly, I have to say congratulations to the bookclubber who chose this book. For the first time in the 18 months that our book club has been in existence, she chose a book that created good discussion almost immediately. Normally we all hold back until the full month we’re given to read a book is up before we start sharing our thoughts .

The reviews were mixed and to be honest, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one struggling - I guess I’m a lowbrow murder mystery/romance/popular lit kinda girl. Reading the back cover I thought this I was getting a chick-lit type of read. However, this was not the case.

The cover is exquisite and I was very excited when the very high quality, WOB second hand edition plopped through my letterbox one morning. I couldn’t wait to get started. I even spouted exhalations about it all to my (very long-suffering) husband - don’t worry, he’s used to it. He turned off his ears and let me get on with it.

What I found inside its pages, however, wasn’t what I was expecting.

Forgive me, very much like the book itself, I’ve taken inspiration from the author. I mean, let’s face it, why write a novel in 100 pages when you can do it in 550. So this review will be more like 15 paragraphs than the normal 1.

So. To the story. Mhairi and her daughter Agnes escape New York and an unhappy relationship to travel to a remote island in Scotland so Mhairi can write the autobiography of Gregor McWatt, the late Bard of Fascaray.

In my mind, this should be a straight forward story of woman leaves toxic relationship in crowded city and moves to cold, wet, remote island with quirky residents. Enrols 9 year old in local school and tries to make friends. Meets cantankerous, yet handsome, farmer / tradesman / shopkeeper / landowner (select one accordingly). He irritates her but they find common ground and an attraction. Then a hideous misunderstanding pulls them apart (thereby irritating the reader beyond measure) before a well meaning life-fiddler brings them back together. The end.

Call me dull but:
Give me a romance (like the above) and I’m your girl.

Give me a historical novel about person of interest (be they a bard, a king, a sporting hero that I want to know more about) I’ll show an interest.

Give me a nature book about trees and the developments of land - I’m all agog.

Give me a book about the history of an island and (as long as it’s a place I know and choose to read about) I’ll get stuck in.

Give me Scottish poetry and I’ll try my hardest not to be a xenophobic philistine.

But give me all of the above in one book and I’m just plain old confused.

Don’t get me wrong, the writing style is beautiful - the author is obviously intellectual and exceedingly proud of her cleverness - but I couldn’t grasp where the story was taking me. Maybe I’m in the wrong headspace to be reading a book like this (life is busy and hectic and sometimes I just want to read Lisa Jewell for pure escapism) but I found it very hard going.

I’m not going to share my copy into the community, or give it to charity, just yet as I like the look of it on my bookshelf. I can’t help thinking I’ll come back to it one day - to try and read it again when life is less jumbled and maybe it’ll make more sense.

But on this occasion I gave up at page 82.

1 ⭐️

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a birthday present from my wife, who picked it up from the bookshop in Morningside when we were in Edinburgh this summer. The combination of literary mystery and Scottish language just seemed like it would add up to a winning read for Steve, and so it did.

Mhairi McPhail is getting in touch with her Scottish roots, traveling back to the Scottish island that her parents left half a century ago. She's writing the biography of a poet from the island, the late Grigor McWatt, whose politically-charged newspaper articles about and Scots-language translations of famous poems are interspersed throughout the narrative. She ends up excavating more about the history and ecology of the island and its inhabitants than about the secretive poet, and ends up understanding things about culture, language, and belonging that she never expected to learn.

McAfee is a vastly talented writer, and this is a wonderfully smart and entertaining book. I just wish she had done more original or imaginative things with her characters; when the minutiae of the civic history of the island are more interesting than the likable but unexciting characters, the reader yearns for something out of the ordinary. When one of the poet's pet sea lions gores the foot of an island fellow, I realized the book could have used more such surprises. McWatt himself seems admirable but hardly visionary. Mhairi's nine year old daughter starts telling kids at school that her father's an astronaut and the concerned headmaster reports this to Mhairi, and she responds, "Do you have something against imagination here?" I wanted to ask the same thing.

[Elite Group · Rating 2 out of 5]

A narrative that explores identity, love, belonging and the universal search for home.

Mhairi McPhail very tidily packs up her life and relationship in New York and moves to the remote Scottish island of Fascaray in the Hebrides with her nine year old daughter, Agnes. She has accepted a commission to write a biography of the late, internationally renowned, Scottish poet, Grigor McWatt.

But who was the cantankerous old man? As she sifts through his house, poems, letters and journals she hopes to unlock a hoard of truth-telling treasures that will illuminate the life and work of the Bard of Fascaray, the poet regarded by many as the custodian of Fascaray’s and Scotland’s soul. On top of all this she has to struggle to adapt to her new life on this remote island cut off from much of the world.

There are extracts from Mhairi’s journal, Grigor’s letters and poems and his evocative journal ramblings about life on the island. There are many parts of the book that are unintelligible unless you are Scottish, and the poems are particularly difficult to make sense of. But the book aptly conveys the beauty of the island, the hardship of life these and the special types of people it takes to live there.

Saphira

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

[Ria · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Mhairi McPhail's relationship with Marco breaks down she uproots herself and her daughter to the desolate island of Fascaray in Scotland.
Taking a job to archive and oversee the setting up of a museum dedicated to the island's most famous resident, Grigor McWatt the poet is a difficult and daunting task.
What should have been a straightforward job turns into a personal quest for the truth, who WAS Grigor?
Learning more about the man behind the poetry she realises he was not all he seemed to the islanders and ultimately she needs to decide what to do with that truth.
A cleverly crafted plot, poetic writing and intriguing storyline makes this an enjoyable read.

[nickoli :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another reread for me. I’ve been thinking about this book a lot recently, so I decided to explore it again. I love the concept and the layout of the story. I will say that I think the ending is a bit unsatisfying and I wish there was more conclusion. I know the story technically isn’t over, but I would like to know more of what happened next.

[MisterHobgoblin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hame is a satirical takedown of romanticised Scotticism with its bards, bagpipes, and tartan trews. 

The basic premise is that Mhairi McPhail, a Scot by birth but with a New York accent, is returning to her homeland to establish a museum on the Isle of Fascaray dedicated to the Isle's famous son, the poet Grigor McWatt. The novel is made up from interleaved sections of Mhairi's diary, her published work A Granite Ballad - The Reimagining of Grigor McWatt, various essays and writings of McWatt from published sources, and McWatt's poems. Together they make up the story of McWatt, compared and contrasted to the experience of Mhairi as an incomer. But they also paint a portrait of a Scottish island community; of the Scots arts and literature community; of Gaelic and Scots; of Scotland as a whole.

The result is hilarious. As real islanders worry about the weather and fuel supplies; shopping trips to the mainland; how to get seven days' work done in six - McWatt and those like him spend their time banging out doggerel poetry in a mish-mash of Scottish dialects purporting to be a language; pontificate on the decline of traditional values; and drinking in the comfort of bars in Edinburgh's New Town.

Fascaray itself is a fictional island, but much of it bears a close resemblance to Lewis, with a fair dose of the Inner Hebrides thrown in (especially Islay and Jura) and even the odd nod to the St Kilda archipelago. The issues feel authentic: the tension between preserving the natural beauty and exploiting natural resources; the tensions between the faiths; and the quest to curate/create a visitor attraction that will bring the tourists rolling in. Some of the events are real: the annual guga hunt is a real thing in Ness; the threat of offshore wind farms (and onshore wind farms) have divided real island communities; islanders really have protested against the establishment of Sunday ferry crossings; and the Morvern peninsula really is being slowly excavated. 

The literary angle to Hame also rings true. In small communities across Scotland, poets and writers are local legends despite the dubious quality of their works. Their works are published by small presses that survive on arts council subsidies, sold in souvenir shops and read by nobody. The writers augment their earnings by penning diaries and editorials for local newspapers. McWatt was a mainstay of the Auchwinnie Pibroch - his opinions given credence because of his fame, and his fame deriving from giving opinions. McWatt's poems are truly terrible: translations of great works into Scots dialect. The typical reader is unlikely to understand all of the verse - the dialect is too obscure - but will understand enough to see how the metre and the imagery have been ripped away from the original poems. And please don't be tempted to translate the verse back into English as that would be just as pointless as McWatt's original translation. The whole Scots dialect thing is paraded for comic effect; we can imagine arty Glaswegians professing to understand all the Scots because it is their language (and requires less effort to learn than the real language of Gaelic), yet failing to agree with each other about what the words actually mean. 

Hame is an absolute gem of a work; relatively long and at risk in the early sections of not having enough of a story to hang together. But as the book builds momentum, so the stories build and the multiple strands come together. The ending - the twist - is perfectly predictable but no less funny for its obviousness. It is rare to coe across a book with quite so much going on and for it all to land. 

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well this book was not what I expected at all . I picked this for book club and in some ways I'm regretting that choice though it has already had people discussing it .
I thought I was going to get a romantic new life kind of read with a historical story thrown in.
I have enjoyed the historical side of the story more and especially the Gaelic/Scottish poetry which added such an atmospheric part to the book . I enjoyed the beautiful words and the fun of trying to work out the Scottish dialect into something I understood.
The hardest part for me that nearly had me giving up reading this was Mhairi and her sections of the book . I found it to be unemotional and dry writing when it should be exciting as she and her daughter start a new life .
For this reason I can only give it 3 stars for such a long and slightly disappointing read .

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I skipped quite a lot of this book. It is a book that's easier to admire than to love. There's no denying McAfee's incredible achievement in creating a multi-layered fictional island culture that taps into a lot of the real aspects of Scotland. It's also a fascinating and ultimately provocative argument about the value of Scots language. But it just goes on and on and on. And on. My advice is to read it, but don't be afraid to skip 50 pages here and there - just make sure you read the final 50 pages, or you'll miss the most interesting bit.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This delightful book positively reeks of Scottishness. Told in Pairts Ane (Incomers), Twa (Cauld Handsel,) Thrie (Oor Ain Fowk), and Fower (Haste Ye Back,) and with a Glossary of Scots words, a Select Bibliography and two Appendices, it is not a straightforward novel - though I must say it pleased me from the first pages in having footnotes. It is on the one hand the journal of Mhairi McPhail, a Canadian of Scots extraction recently living in New York, returned to her ancestral home of the Hebridean island of Fascaray to investigate the life and papers of the late poet Grigor McWatt (self-styled Bard of Fascaray) and set up a museum in his memory, on the other a history of Fascaray (and through it the wider Scottish experience) as delivered through extracts from a supposedly forthcoming volume composed by McWatt entitled The Fascaray Compendium (as edited by McPhail and to be published by Crumlin Press) plus extracts from McPhail’s own book on McWatt’s life, A Granite Ballad – The Reimagining of Grigor McWatt (Thackeray College Press, 2016,) all interspersed with examples of the poet’s work (mostly owersettings - translations - or reimaginings of poems familiar from other sources.)

Blessed - and blighted - by the success of his song Hame tae Fascaray in the early 1960s (the list given of artists who have recorded it includes among the great, the good - and the unlikely [The Three Tenors? Dolly Parton?] - the wonderfully named Shooglenifty) and whose lyric bears some (undoubtedly intentional) similarities to The Mingulay Boat Song , McWatt is stand-offish - except perhaps in his cups - curmudgeonly, opinionated, a staunch supporter of both the Scots language and the islanders’ interests, fiercely anti-landlord and even more virulently anti-English – almost a caricature, although solidly fleshed out, of the dour Scot. His relationship with Lilias Hogg (the Flooer o Rose Street) - represented here as something of a poet’s groupie but evidently devoted to McWatt - is predictably distant, not helped by Hogg’s discovery of letters to McWatt from a mysterious woman named Jean.

Our partial narrator McPhail also has a troubled history, a straying husband and her disastrous retaliatory affair in part precipitating her decision to take the job on Fascaray, necessitating bringing along her nine-year old daughter Agnes, who in turn suffers a more or less benign neglect. But who finds the island interesting. At one point in her journal Mhairi describes the contrast in Glasgow’s atmosphere from the night of the Independence referendum to the day after. “Yesterday Glasgow was a carnival. Today it’s a funeral,” and tells us, “Scots have little time for overt sentimentality, though the covert sort has its place.”

Such meditations on Scottishness are never far away. In his Compendium McWatt quotes a Spaniard as writing, “‘Scots go to war, and when they run out of wars, they fight each other,’ and goes on to add, “While our native hostility and suspicion of each other may be ingrained, it is as nothing – a mere shadow dance – to the contempt we hold for our arrogant southern neighbours.” Mhairi’s journal contains a narrator’s aside about the smoothing out of an interviewee’s Scots for tourist consumption. “For ‘very’ read ‘gey’, for ‘aren’t’ read ‘arenae’. It’s not so hard is it?” But her transcriber avers, “‘There’s no Scots leid* .... There are about four Scots dialects and ten sub-dialects, and they’re all variants of English with a bit of Norse thrown in.’” (To which it’s a pity that Mhairi doesn’t reply, ‘But Scots was once one of the great languages of mediæval Europe. On equal footing.’) Later, though, Mhairi does come across McWatt writing that Scots is “no more a dialect than Catalan is a local variant of Castilian Spanish.”

Among McWatt’s many lists of Fascaray’s plant life, animals, sea creatures and the like is one of Scots words denoting fine weather - most of which necessarily describe short interludes - and one, deow, which is defined as “gentle rain”. We are also treated to his view of what makes a Scot - “a modest stoicism, a sense of social justice, a distrust of rank and the trappings of fame and an unbragging appreciation of the beauty and majesty around us.”

The titles and nominal publishers of McWatt’s writings add further grace notes:-
his Memoirs:- Forby (as by Virr Press, 1962) and Ootwith (Smeddum Beuks, 1994,)
his Collected Journalism - mostly reprints from the local (mainland) newspaper The Auchwinnie Pibroch:- Frae Mambeag Brae: Selected Columns and Essays of Grigor McWatt (Stravaigin Press, 1980) and Wittins: Mair Selected Columns and Essays of Grigor McWatt (Stravaigin Press, 2011,)
the books of poetry:- Kenspeckelt (Virr Press, 1959,)
Kowk in the Kaleyard (Virr Press, 1975,)
Wappenshaw (Virr Press, 1986,)
Warld in a Gless: The Collected Varse of Grigor McWatt (Smeddum Beuks, 1992,)
Teuchter’s Chapbook (Smeddum Beuks, 1998,)
Thoog a Poog (Smeddum Beuks, 2010,)
That’s me Awa (Smeddum Beuks, 2013,)
The Whigmaleerie’s Ower – The Complete Collected Verse of Grigor McWatt, ed. Ailish Mooney (Smeddum Beuks, 2015.)


The book’s endpapers display an illustrated sketch map of Fascaray and its environs. The first appendix contains recipes for Fascaray delicacies - the method for a fish piece** takes up one line, as does that for the soorocks salad - the second is the sheet music for Hame tae Fascaray (as published by Stramash Music.)

Though it is twice (subtly) foreshadowed I’m still undecided as to whether the twist in the final sections revealing the nature of Jean’s relationship to McWatt enhances or detracts from McAfee’s overall tale; either response is legitimate.

No matter: notwithstanding the embedded tales with which McAfee has provided us here, what is impressive is the journey, the relish in the use of Scots, the demonstration of its vitality, its refusal to lie down and go away. Hame is a book which revels in the ongoing Scottish tradition in literature.

* leid = language
** piece is of course a Scots word for sandwich.

[Kirsty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so looking forward to this! What's not to like about a novel set on a remote Scottish island, about an author who is researching a figure who has been forgotten in history? Annalena McAfee's telling, alas.

I used to read her children's book, the aptly named Kirsty Knows Best, over and over when I was small, and when I found out that she had written an adult book, I just had to read it. Sadly, I didn't get that far before abandoning the novel altogether. The plot was interesting, and it was well written, certainly, but the pacing felt off to me, and I simply could not connect with any of the frankly unrealistic characters. The sections about Scottish history are fascinating, but they read more like a school textbook than a novel; there is nothing poetic about their transition to the page, and the prose style in which they were written was rather plain. Quite disappointing.

[Gerard de Bruin · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a strange book this is.
And how very, very cleverly composed! Three, maybe four different voices mix: the author (Mhairi McPhail, a Canadian of Scots descent) of a biography of the poet Grigor McWatt, the poet himself, the biography and a variety of 'compendiums' about Fascaray, the island he is living on.
All this illustrated with poems in Scottish (or Lallans or Scots), often reworkings ( “translations” or “owersettins") of famous classic (English) poetry.

The volume (quantity) of the autobiographic input of Mhairi about herself, her life, her marriage and her 9 year old daughter who came with her to Fascaray, changes during the course of the book. As she gets deeper into her task of writing the biography, the book changes into that biography.

Annalena McAfee has voiced the different players and subjects quite brilliantly. The tone of the book goes from mundane to lyrical and everything in between. Pity I finsihed it.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this tale of a fictional Scottish poet, but was really let down by the ending! Too happy, and too neatly wrapped up- not believable at all.

[Hella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Op zich leek Hame mij op het lijf geschreven: een boek dat zich afspeelt op een afgelegen Schots eiland, over een bijna mythische dichter die zich daar vestigde in de tweede wereldoorlog.
Mhairi McPhail, een New Yorkse Canadese met Schotse voorouders vestigt zich met haar dochtertje op het eiland om de biografie te schrijven van deze Bard of Fascaray, Grigor McWatt, die ook nog eens de allerberoemdste Schotse protestsong Hame tae Fascaray op zijn naam heeft staan.

Gelukkig is mijn begrip van het Scots helemaal niet zo slecht. Het duurde even voor ik het Doric van Aberdeen kon verstaan, maar toen ik ontdekte dat het Fries daarbij behulpzaam kan zijn, werd het steeds wat makkelijker.
Het Scots van McWatt is een samenraapsel van alle Schotse dialecten die naast het Gaelic gesproken worden. Hij maakt owersettings van bekende Engelse gedichten, en legt lijsten aan van diverse termen, over het weer, en alles wat groeit en bloeit op Fascaray.

McAfee heeft zich gigantisch uitgeleefd om een levensechte geschiedenis van het eiland te verzinnen, waarbij je eigenlijk bij iedere naam moet opzoeken of die echt of verzonnen is - en de meeste zijn echt. Deze vorm van metafictie is een echte trend aan 't worden (ik schreef er ook over in mijn stuk over LeGuin), en hoewel ik er heus de lol wel van inzie, verveelt het me aan de andere kant ook snel.

We vinden al deze feiten in de fragmenten uit de biografie, die 2 jaar na de gebeurtenissen in het boek wordt uitgegeven. Vooral die stukken zijn lang en taai en feitelijk niets meer dan een politieke en sociale geschiedenis van Schotland in de twintigste eeuw. Als McWatt zelf aan het woord is, hoor je tenminste nog een leuke, partijdige, opstandige stem (de beste man heeft 276 notitieboekjes volgepend voor zijn Compendium of Fascaray).

De eigenlijke plot – dat wat ik maar het 'verhaalheden' noem – speelt zich af in dagboekfragmenten van Mhairi. Wat mij betreft hadden die stukken veel langer mogen zijn. Want normaal had ik het boek misschien niet uitgelezen omdat ik de geschiedenisstukken zo zat was (en na verloop van tijd ook niet meer de moeite nam om van ál die gedichten in het Scots het Engelse origineel op te zoeken, zoals bijvoorbeeld van Dylan Thomas: "Dinnae gang saft intae thon guid nicht" of van Yeats: "Stramp doucely fur ye stramp oan ma dwaums"). En het zijn juist de zoektocht van Mhairi naar wie McWatt werkelijk was – ze kan maar niets vinden over zijn jeugd – en haar eigen in het reine komen met haar ingewikkelde wortels en dito relatie met de vader van haar dochter die het uiteindelijk de moeite waard maken om het helemaal uit te lezen. Ik twijfel tussen drie en vier sterren.

[Juliano · Rating 2 out of 5]

“In the end, my family history, the need for an anchor, a fixed point in a spinning world, must have had some role in my decision.” I acquired Annalena McAfee’s novel Hame when it came out nearly five years ago and was excited to finally get around to reading it — sadly, it was not worth the wait. It’s a frustrating, bloated book, its prose cringingly lacking in any subtlety/finesse, its dialogue too stilted. Its premise was promising: residing in America and descended from Scottish ancestors, Mhairi McPhail — facing the collapse of her relationship with Marco, the father of her daughter Agnes, flees to her ancestral roots on the island of Fascaray, where Mhairi has been hired to write a book about the local poet-hero Grigor McWatt, as well as overseeing the opening of a museum in McWatt’s name. The novel unfolds through excerpts from the biography she writes about him (in 2016) and her diary entries from August to December 2014, alongside writings + correspondence from McWatt, working in a Scots dialect. And so McAfee crafts not only Mhairi’s narrative and two distinct writing voices, but also McWatt’s different voices and tones, and blends them all together into a single, coherent book. And overall, the plot of the novel is quite compelling, but one must sift through a lot of tedium to get there (tedium that isn’t particularly rewarding or groundbreaking); and the personal narrative for Mhairi’s family is interesting, though struggles against the rest of it. That all said, I enjoyed some of McAfee’s characterisation: for Mhairi, infuriatingly blinkered, “Transcendence, alas, is not an option for me. All I have is my work”; and, she observes of McWatt around the novel’s climactic twist: “And he paid heavily for his deceit; the price of a lifetime secret is loneliness.” It’s not irredeemable by any means, though I’d struggle to recommend it earnestly.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Hame' was not what I expected when I started reading it. Maybe I hadn't read the back of the book well enough. It surprised me that the book comprised of quite different stories. First there is the story of Mhairi McPhail, who after she splits up with her partner, moves, together with her daughter, to the fictional island of Fascaray, Scotland. Then there are the poems by Grigor McWatt, a fictional poet, studied by McPhail. Thirdly, there are the excerpts from the book Mhairi McPhail is writing about McWatt's life. Finally, there are excerpts from Grigor McWatt's Fascaray compendium, his attempt to detail life on the island and parts of Scotland's history, and his columns for the Pibroch, a local newspaper. The different sources come together in the story and are sometimes nicely linked to one another. For example, some poems by McWatt are about the same themes are Mhairi McPhail's diary entry.
The book is part detective novel. At the start it becomes clear that Grigor McWatt's early life and his love life are both shrouded in mystery. Slowly, McWatt's past and his various muses are uncovered by McPhail. Sometimes she stumbles upon new clues at a very convenient time. Because of this there is never any worry that she'll get stuck at a dead end
As the reader becomes acquainted with Mhairi McPhail, it becomes clear that there are certain parallels between her life and that of Grigor McWatt. Their youths are a little similar and both feel somewhat like outcasts to society, neither one belonging anywhere at times. Some of McPhail's actions seemed out of character or hard to understand to me. Perhaps that is a consequence of how the novel is written. With the focus mainly on McWatt's life and the island, her story sometimes disappears a little to the background.

[Chaya · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a novel whose value lies in the virtuosity of its author rather than in the interest of its subject matter or characters. The book is a virtuoso performance, one that unfortunately is meant to dazzle the reader with the literary gymnastics of its author rather than affect emotionally, much like a performance of "Flight of the Bumblebee" is meant to dazzle the listener with a sense of the mastery of the violin player rather than touch deeply.

The reader cannot deny the sheer skill of McAfee. She presents a narrative within a narrative, combining a story about researcher Mhairi McPhail on the fictional island of Fascaray with fictionalized excerpts of the work of the author she is researching, Grigor McWatt, along with samples of "his" poetry, random lists (for example, things her daughter brought with her to the island, or "chronological inventory of recordings of "Hame Tae Fascary," the song McWatt wrote about the island), along with lists of Scots words, letters between McWatt and his lover, excerpts of McPhail's own research book on the island and McWatt, Scottish recipes, a fake bibliography, and glossary of Scots words. Whew. The exhaustive research that McAfee has done takes its toll on the reader, however, as none of it resonates emotionally or spiritually. This is a purely intellectual enterprise, and reading it may give intellectual pleasure, but that's where the payoff ends. What we're left with is a ho-hum story about not-so-interesting characters and a lot of literary flourishes.

Thanks to the author and publisher for a review copy.

[Book Faries Frankfurt · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, I think it was a creative and refreshing idea to structure the novel in three different parts, even though it sometimes slowed the narrative's pacing down.
Second, I enjoy learning more about Scotland and especially Fascaray. Unfortunately the very detailed storytelling and lengthy historical descriptions, often created an overwhelming reading effect for me.
Third, I enjoyed the book's dustcover and hardback design, because it enhanced the reading experience immensely.
The reason for the two star rating is, that I couldn't get emotionally invested in the characters at all. I'm not quite sure if this was a result of the author's writing style or the main narrative in general.
Especially from Mhairi I got the impression that she was an ego-centered, work-focused and ruthless character. Instead of taking care of her daughter, she most of the time behaved like a child herself (being sulky, narrow-minded, angry with the world). Other side characters like the bard, her ex-husband or the island's inhabitants felt wooden and very stereotypical to me.
If the author tried to create a disconnected and detached reading atmosphere to mirror Mhairi's internal emotional processes, she definitely succeeded. Regrettably the novel's themes and interesting ideas were overshadowed by this strange atmosphere and didn't arouse my interest.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a piece of writerly effort, this was technically very impressive. As a novel meant to be read, it's deathly dull. McAfee crafts an entire history of a fictional Scottish island and its resident poet Grigor McWatt, complete with samples of the poet's work; detailed accounts of the island's history, flora, and fauna; the journal entries of an (insufferable) modern-day academic researching McWatt; said academic's biography of him; and even recipes. The sheer amount of work that went into this is evident and there are some beautiful turns of phrase scattered throughout the book. And the only reason I finished this was because I had dragged it across the Atlantic with me and refused to let the suitcase space have been wasted. Hame was so dry and dragged on and on. Even though many of the events described in the novel are deeply emotional and dramatic by nature, the format somehow manages to drain them of all impact. The characters get little development, with McWatt verging on a caricature of a grumpy Scotsman and Mhairi, the academic, incredibly whiny and irritating. A Scottish slog.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really difficult book to review as you feel like you are being unfair. By rights I should have probably loved this book with its mixture of Scottish poetry, meta faction and descriptions of the island, However, I found Mhairi the woman researching McWatt's life pretty annoying as she wanders around the island ignoring her daughter and trying to avoid thinking about her ex husband and stupid affair. The lack of a plot hampers the book, I can't survive on poetry alone and I found the book bit dull and a slog to read at times, The ending made me want to throw the book across the room, it was one of those books when you feel like the writer just ran out of ideas and gave up. I just got so frustrated with the potential, I wanted to pan it but it's just like a beautiful vase with holes in the bottom, brilliantly crafted but ultimately failing in its function. Maybe I would have loved it if it had been about Wales, as it is I am just so pleased to have finished it and be able to return it to the library.

[Neile · Rating 4 out of 5]

I so loved the evocation of the Hebrides here, the sense of history, of the effects of the 20th and 21st centuries on such semi-isolated places. I was also impressed with the breadth of work here--the "articles," the poems re-envisioned in Scots dialect, the letters, the journals. Structurally, very cleverly and carefully handled. I liked the evocation of the writer, too, the subject of the researcher's work. His life and work was fascinating, as was "his" evocation of his island and its people. I was less enamoured of the author's way of depicting her main character, the researcher--clear and realistic, and I did like how she let her gradually tell the details of her own story, but her blindness to things about herself and the situation felt heavy-handed. It also bothered me that the twist was telegraphed so early. I was still interested in how it played out, and like the ultimate result, but it felt a little deus ex machina. Overall, I'm glad I read it.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book.
I understand the length, dialect and different character voices could be off-putting for some. I confess, I found it slow to get into.

Once I had settled in however, and got used to the flow of the narrative (made up of different styles, types and voices) it really came to life for me. I didn't love Mhairi, but I did love Agnes and that kept me invested. The descriptions of island life, of the social history of Scotland and some current affairs thrown in for good measure I found very well done.

Perhaps it helps I'm Scottish, that I know a little about some of these events (fictitious retellings or otherwise), but I thought it worked well.

The book is one about identity: cultural, individual. Can we create it ourselves or is it innate? Can we create our own history, and change history, and what will we be remembered for.
Big questions, in a big book!

[Bryan Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hame is a hat trick: one part academic biography, one part modern mother/daughter story and one part poetry. And it's all fake. McAfee has made up a small, northern Scotland island and the history behind it. When I first started this book, I had no idea if I was going to be able to finish it. It's dense, filled with mumbled Scottish, long and immersive, but by the end of this novel, I found I cared for Mhairi McPhail, her family and the island of Fascaray. I loved this book because it's about language, and it's importance in a culture's existence. Heaps of poems, a famous song, and an artist's manifesto outline the importance of community to those on the island, and makes me want to visit Fascaray on my next trip to Scotland....but it doesn't exist! Hame to Fascaray! Great job, McAfee. I'm very, very impressed.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary book. McAfee has done an incredible amount of research, resulting in three books in one: collected writings/ poetry, a diary and an academic biography. All of it fiction. I had to google the island and the poet to reassure myself they weren’t real!!
I can’t say I “enjoyed” it - it’s not that sort of novel - but I admire it, as an extraordinary feat of writing and creation, and academic rigour.
At the centre of the novel is the fictional poet, Grigor McWatt - an amalgam of several dour Scotsmen - who feels very real but isn’t very likeable. The narrator isn’t very engaging either - self absorbed and obsessed by work. The whole thing is saved by Agnes - the protagonist’s 9 year old daughter - who is lovely and is the real heart of the novel.