Bantam by Jackie Kay (Picador, £9.99)
This is Kay’s first collection of poetry since becoming Makar, and several of these pieces are commissions, the most famous being Welcome Wee One, the poem she wrote for inclusion in the Scottish Government’s baby box, but it also includes Threshold, which she delivered at the 2016 opening of the Parliament, a hymn to inclusivity that breaks into a profusion of different languages. And inclusivity is certainly one of the watchwords of this collection. These poems are bound together by a generous, humane spirit which encompasses childbirth, loving memories of her parents and grandparents, gratitude to the generations which fell in two world wars and the vision of an open, welcoming Scotland. Finding the transcendent in the mundane, and vice versa, Kay’s is a clear and resonant voice befitting the public role it now occupies, but one which communicates sentiments of universality while retaining its own distinctiveness and remaining rooted in Kay’s personal experience.
Black Robe by Brian Moore (Apollo, £10)
Reissued with a new introduction by Colm Tóibín, this is a bona fide classic from the author of The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne. There’s more than a hint of Heart Of Darkness to this 1985 novel, set in 17th-century Canada, in which Jesuit priest Father Paul Laforgue travels deep into the interior to replace a priest in a remote outpost. Accompanied by his young assistant, Daniel, who is already showing signs of going native, Laforgue is being taken upriver by members of the Algonkin tribe, whose spiritual beliefs are incompatible with his Catholicism. Laforgue’s faith is put to the test in an unforgiving wilderness, surrounded by people who believe him to be a dangerous sorcerer. Moore had the good judgement to tell this thoughtful tale of a clash of cultures as a tense, exciting and well-paced adventure story in which hardly a word is wasted. There can be few better blends of serious literary intent and gripping storytelling.
All Soldiers Run Away by Andy Owen (Lammi, £14.99)
Rifleman Alan Juniper deserted the British Army in Italy in 1944, finding refuge in a Perugian village, where he became “Alano” and lived, for a while, as a member of the community. His family had long known this. But the onset of dementia stirred up memories of a previous desertion in 1942, and when he was diagnosed with PTSD at 85, his wife approached Andy Owen to tell his story. Owen reconstructs as best he can Juniper’s war in North Africa and Italy, and believes he has located the origin of his panic attacks and fear of confined spaces. But with so little written evidence of his experiences, Juniper is somewhat swamped in the history of the Second World War and changing military attitudes towards PTSD. Owen, a former soldier, was unsure as to whether he wanted to write this, but doing so forced him to “play devil’s advocate to my own prejudices” and he presents a sympathetic portrait of an unfortunate man.
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