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Before Now: Memoir of a Toerag
Not yet published
Expected 31 May 21“Ah suppose there’s loads eh stories that ah could stert wi. Lucky escapes ah suppose ye could cry thum. The story eh how ma maw ruined oor lives by draggin us away fae ma da an aw the calamity that followed. But ah cannae tell that just yet.”
Sam and Gavin Smart’s worlds shatter when their maw rips them from the family home on Mother’s Day 1990.
Six years later, Gavin is confined to a room in his granny’s house after breaking a leg. All he wants is to pass his driving theory test and escape the room, instead he writes his memoir of the last six turbulent years. As the memoir progresses more than one person’s story emerges and Gavin realises things have to change.
This coming-of-age story, told entirely in the Fife dialect, is filled with comedy, high pranks and a heavy dose of unintended pathos.
Moira McPartlin’s Before Now exposes the challenges faced by a single parent family in a small mining community in the wake of mass pit closures.
Sam and Gavin Smart’s worlds shatter when their maw rips them from the family home on Mother’s Day 1990.
Six years later, Gavin is confined to a room in his granny’s house after breaking a leg. All he wants is to pass his driving theory test and escape the room, instead he writes his memoir of the last six turbulent years. As the memoir progresses more than one person’s story emerges and Gavin realises things have to change.
This coming-of-age story, told entirely in the Fife dialect, is filled with comedy, high pranks and a heavy dose of unintended pathos.
Moira McPartlin’s Before Now exposes the challenges faced by a single parent family in a small mining community in the wake of mass pit closures.
168 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication May 31, 2121
About the author
Moira McPartlin
11 books39 followersMoira McPartlin made a big impact with The Incomers, her debut novel set in Fife. It was shortlisted for the Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award and was a critical success.
Her speculative fiction Sun Song Trilogy novels, Ways of the Doomed, Wants of the Silent and Star of Hope set in 2089, reflect many issues we are living with today.
In September 2019 her short play A Handful Of Glaur was included as part of the UNESCO Cities of Literature Short Play Festival in New Zealand and in 2020 she will take up a writing fellowship at Hawthornden Castle. She is also a prolific writer of short stories and poetry and has been published in a variety of literary magazines.
Her new novel Before Now: Memoir of a Toerag was published in May 2021.
She lives in Stirling.
Her speculative fiction Sun Song Trilogy novels, Ways of the Doomed, Wants of the Silent and Star of Hope set in 2089, reflect many issues we are living with today.
In September 2019 her short play A Handful Of Glaur was included as part of the UNESCO Cities of Literature Short Play Festival in New Zealand and in 2020 she will take up a writing fellowship at Hawthornden Castle. She is also a prolific writer of short stories and poetry and has been published in a variety of literary magazines.
Her new novel Before Now: Memoir of a Toerag was published in May 2021.
She lives in Stirling.
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