Memory and Straw

by Angus Peter Campbell

WINNER OF THE 2017 SALTIRE SOCIETY FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD A face is nothing without its history. Gavin and Emma live in Manhattan. Shes a musician. He works in Artificial Intelligence. Hes good at his job. Scarily good. Hes researching human features to make more realistic mask-bots non-human carers for elderly people. When his enquiry turns personal hes forced to ask whether his own life is an artificial mask. Delving into family stories and his roots in the Highlands of Scotland, he embarks on a quest to discover his own true face, uniquely sprung from all the faces that had been. He returns to England to look after his Grampa. Travels. Reads old documents. Visits ruins. Borrows, plagiarises and invents. But when Emma tells him his proper work is to make a story out of glass and steel, not memory and straw, which path will he choose? Whats the best story he can give her? A novel about the struggle for freedom and personal identity; what it means to be human. It fuses the glass and steel of our increasingly controlled algorithmic world with the memory and straw of our forebears world controlled by traditions and taboos, the seasons and the elements.

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Angus Peter Campbell (b. 1952) is an award-winning Scottish poet, novelist, journalist, broadcaster and actor. He writes in Gaelic as Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul.

Reviews

[Frank J Farrell]

One set of reviews is headed bocks you should read twice. Well it took me quite a while to get into this book but once I was in I found it quite compulsive . Then having finished I had to start again to put it all together.
Any of you who watched the TV series "Humans" may have been intrigued by the idea of realistic automatons but a little disappointed with the actual series . The automatons were life like but strangely "cold" as they were without expression
This story deals with the issue of automatons that are developed to care for the elderly. We are going to need them as the elderly are growing as a group and growing in need. But Gavin in the story realises that to be empathetic they have to have an ability to show emotion by facial expression. Gavin is involved in the challenge . But is disturbed by the outcome.
It all takes me back to one of my favourite films , "Blade Runner" in which the main character Deckard ( Harrison Ford ) is set in the future where automatons , called replicants are recognized to be a challenge and a threat to society as they become more and more intelligent. But I'll leave the plot for you to examine.
Gavin's problem is rather more subtle as he has used a research of his ancestry to develop the advanced automatons , which he calls face bots.
Most of the book deals with his research into his ancestry from his Great-great-grandmother Elizabeth down the generations to his own grandfather whom he knew and loved .
The story steps beautifully through episodes in his ancestry back in the times of the highland clearances using images so poetically crafted and so emotionally gripping that the story become impossible to put down.
His deep relationship with his grandfather develops even more after his grandmother dies and leaves him quite unable to deal with --- I wont spoil the ending.

I had to read it twice to fully understand and get the entirety of the fascinating concept. The language is quite lyrical

[Elysia Fionn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very hard book to rate. I gave it four stars because sections of it had me literally in tears. There are moments of real humanity that I completely related to - especially where it deals with older family members, and what is really important.

Also, the cover art depicting New York and Scotland in one shot absolutely sums up my inner heart's core. I live in New York, my heart lives in Scotland. And my brain, half the time.

The story line, though, seemed to a) not really exist, and b) have absolutely nothing to do with the assessment given on the inside flap of the book cover. Honestly, the whole "Gavin is an AI researcher" thing would have nearly completely escaped my notice if they had not put it there in the synopsis.

This is more like a randomly collected bunch of really good thoughts - not so much a story. At least, that's how it hit me.

The author is a poet. I think that might have something to do with the way this book doesn't really come across as a book. I would definitely read more of Mr. Campbell's work... maybe poetry next time.

[Catriona · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking, at times startlingly insightful, and engaging book about place, self, time and what it is to be human.
I enjoyed parts of this book more than others, though the fault here is probably mine, as it took me a wee while to understand that what I was reading was something more than an 'ordinary' novel. Rather this is a book about big, fundamental ideas, wrapped up in a world that most of us can recognise and understand. For me the most interesting part was not the development of artificial intelligence, but the way in which people used myth, story and alternative time/realities to cope with difficult times, and how these myths became sewn into the fabric of their collective reality.
Recommended.

[Jacqui · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t get into it - didn’t finish

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an exquisite book. More like reading a dream than a coherent story. Lovingly placed on the worth-another -read shelf