Alan Rossi’s debut novel takes place in the days following a tragic road accident. Nicholas and April are travelling home following a party on campus. In a moment of inattention, their car skids off the road and flips over. April is killed instantly. Nicholas dies later in hospital. As readers, as spectators, we know this from the outset. In one sense, the central drama of the novel takes place before the novel begins. In another, quite different sense, that drama is just beginning.

Nicholas and April leave behind a four-year-old son, Jack. In the hours and days following the accident, members of their family attempt to come to a decision over who of them is best placed to care for him in his life without his parents. Nicholas’s brother Nathaniel and his wife Stefanie are convinced that not only are they best suited to be parents, they are also Jack’s rightful guardians as appointed by Nicholas and April. Nicholas and Nathaniel’s father David has other ideas – with their busy working lives, can Nathaniel and Stefanie really offer Jack the stability he needs? April’s mother Tammy, partially estranged from the family, feels she is being pushed out. She believes she shares an instinctive bond with Jack, the kind of bond that no amount of money or possessions can come close to replacing.

As the six people in this drama draw closer geographically, so the cracks and contradictions in their intertwined relationships begin to appear. In the end it is left to Nicholas – trapped and dying in the wreckage of his car – to imagine into being a future he himself will not live to see.

This novel is a difficult read in all the right senses: emotionally devastating, morally ambiguous, with questions left unanswered and no ideal solutions on offer. Nicholas’s section in particular is devastating, and given the psychological pressures of our current circumstances I would advise sensitive readers to approach with care. But I would, unequivocally, advise them to approach, for Mountain Road, Late at Night is an extraordinary achievement, and whilst it is a difficult book to come to terms with it is absolutely not a difficult book to read. Rossi’s narrative burns off the page – I kept thinking of it as a stream of lights, of cat’s eyes, illuminating each new stretch of the road it travels, offering partial but transformative glimpses of what is to come.

There are times you read a book and think: this writer loves and reveres the written word. This was one of those times for me. The imagery, the thought process, the densely articulated emotion, the lack of sentimentality, the heartfelt compassion and depth of empathy – these are the effects and attributes of Rossi’s writing and you will find this novel, slim though it is, circumscribed though it is in terms of its canvas and cast of characters, impossible to forget.

If you liked John Wells’s movie August: Osage County (brilliantly adapted for the screen from his own stage play by Tracy Letts) then you will love Mountain Road, Late at Night.

There is something curiously timely about this book. Watching its action unfold is somewhat akin to watching April and Nicholas’s accident unfold in slow motion: everything is happening now, and everything that happens in the days afterwards is also happening even as the car begins its fatal slide across the mountain highway. We cannot alter what is happening, but we can live in these moments, we can feel close to the protagonists – all of them, equally (though I loved Tammy best!) – and we can examine our thoughts, our feelings, our actions as if we, too, were a part of this drama.

We are a part of this drama. What we do matters. What we say matters. How we feel matters.

The current situation is of an extreme magnitude. The word everyone keeps using is unprecedented, a word too often put in play maybe, only in this case it’s true. At least for us, at least for now. I normally love this time of year – with the evenings getting longer and the light increasing, it is my favourite time of year, more beloved even than summer, because all the flowers are opening and summer is still to come. Seeing our little town so closed and so quiet at a time when it would normally be opening itself to the increasing sunshine and a growing number of visitors is heartbreaking. I worry especially for all the small traders and hospitality businesses and freelance individuals who depend on these visitors, as our town depends on them, on being visible, on being beloved. Yet at the same time there is a sense of relief, that this shutdown happened before the season got underway, increasing the risk to the town and to resident islanders.

It will take everyone a long time – years maybe – to process and recover from what has happened, what is still happening. We do not properly have the language to process it, not yet – hence the over-reliance on preconceived images of dystopia, which are inadequate and more especially mostly inaccurate. We must and will in time develop that language, and in constructing a narrative I hope also that we will think differently about what can be achieved – what we can achieve – if the political will is there. We have seen measures enacted over the past weeks and days that we would never have imagined possible. What if the same measure of political will were brought to bear in combating climate change? In helping marginalised communities? In protecting threatened environments and ecosystems?

There is a measure of disjuncture, in the present time, in reading books that were written and conceived before the present time. I am sure everyone reading this will have found themselves reading a novel or watching a TV drama and thinking: ‘ooh look, people in a pub!’ or something of that kind. People in a pub – like an image from deep time. A disjunctive and somehow shocking experience.

We might find it useful and even helpful to fully inhabit those moments of inner drama, to try and understand them, to discover what they mean for our ability to imagine.

Knowing that we will – on an individual as well as a societal level – be changed by this is frightening, estranging, humbling and utterly new.

Read what feels right for you. In a move that might seem counterintuitive, I found myself reaching for Countdown City, the second novel in Ben H. Winters’s Last Policeman series. Reading about a murder investigation taking place against the background of an impending asteroid strike might not seem like the happiest of impulses right now, yet the protagonist’s calm, compassionate, organised and professional attitude to coping with disaster has a curiously calming effect. I loved the obsessive attention to detail in the first volume – I love this kind of forensic writing – and it has been hugely enjoyable and energising to encounter it again.

Work is good, being in touch with friends is good. As through those dark and uncertain months that are the Scottish winter, running early in the morning is good. When I’m running, everything feels normal. When I’m reading, everything feels new.

I’d like to particularly thank all those writing and creating content – getting new stuff to read and watch and think about is even more important now than it is usually. A particular shout-out to Influx Press, who are planning to take some of their author events online as the lockdown continues, and to booktubers and podcasters Caroline, Eric, Simon, Mercedes, Jen, Sophie, Lauren, April, Rachel and Claire among many others – your passion for what you read and your resilience in continuing to make videos to keep us all going through this current crisis is a priceless gift.

For everyone reading this blog, please keep safe and well.

You can find a short and beautifully illustrated essay by Alan Rossi about the inspiration he finds in the Blue Ridge Mountains here.

At the time of writing (Saturday morning) I am halfway through reading Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School, and if I finish it, as I hope to, by the time of posting then I will have read eighty-five books this year. Not a colossal number by some marathon readers’ standards (you know who you are!) but good enough. Enough to be left with the sense that the year has provided something in the way of progress and of discovery. Enough to feel that I am about to enter 2020 knowing more about myself as a writer than I did twelve months ago. Reading, for me, has always been about that: the sense of community and communality with other writers, the being reminded of what we’re doing and why we do it. Now, perhaps more than at any other time in my life, I look upon writing as a vocation, and not just writing but everything that goes with it: thinking, reflecting, engaging with ideas and above all reading. It’s a serious business, a business of personal dedication, a truth that resists defamation as it resists erosion. It is this I hold to as we enter the next decade, with all its challenges.  

One thing I have decided not to do this year is to set myself any specific reading goals for the year to come. Chief among bookish pleasures through the month of December are the various end-of-year reading lists, videos and podcasts put out by reviewers, readers and critics, wrapping up old reading projects and detailing their upcoming reading plans. As many of these same readers discover, even the best laid of bookish plans are apt to fall by the wayside when confronted by time. Nor is this a simple matter of being seduced by newer, potentially more exciting titles. For me at least it has more to do with the fact that my reading evolves: each book I read has a knock-on effect on the next, has a direct bearing upon subsequent reading choices, and so I might often find – I do often find – that the reasons for setting a particular reading goal as much as the goal itself no longer feel relevant. This can feel frustrating but it is exciting too – that sense of discovery again, the feeling that you are being remade as a reader even as you read.

I know I am bound to be sucked into some prize-reading projects at some point – I am particularly looking forward to the release of the Republic of Consciousness Prize longlist in January (an energising and inspiring way to begin any year), the Gordon Burn Prize longlist in May and the Goldsmith’s Prize list beyond that. I enjoy book prizes not through any misplaced excitement at guessing the winner – the very notion of ‘winning’ in literature is a ridiculous one, and potentially harmful – but because of the discussion they generate, and because the particular focus of certain awards is interesting to me. They help my reading, in other words, even if only to push it in the opposite direction, they inspire debate. But I’m not going to be rigid about it: if I find myself losing interest in an awards shortlist, or if I don’t have the time, or if something more relevant presents itself, then that’s fine. There is always more to read.  

If I had to sum up my 2019 as a reading year, I’d describe it as oddly circular. You remember the hideous sequence in The Blair Witch Project where the three doomed students spend an entire day walking in a complete circle? My reading year has been something like that but (I hasten to add) in a good way. I find certain ideas coalescing, certain ambitions becoming cemented, certain interests being validated and reaffirmed. I’m working on three separate writing projects at the moment, a novel and two distinct pieces of creative non-fiction, each of which alternately feeds into and stimulates the other, the entire process stoked and bolstered by reading, and reading is rocket fuel. These three projects are my most personal to date, and the most challenging, which is why I am excited by them. There is a fear factor, but fear, at least when it comes to writing, is another brand of rocket fuel.

Since 2012, I’ve been in the habit of listing and making brief notes on all the books I read in the given year, as well as allocating to each a mark out of ten. These scores are arbitrary and personal, as likely to be affected by what was going on in my life or most especially in my writing when I read a book as by how far a particular title turned out to accord with my bookish needs or prejudices at the time. The lists are interesting to look back on though, especially over time as patterns emerge and themes repeat. For my best books of 2019, I’ve decided to reveal the nine titles I gave a 10/10. I had no plans to do this at the start of the year, so there has been no pre-calculation involved, and I have resisted the temptation to up the scores of certain titles just to include them here, strong though that temptation has turned out to be. (There are ten 9s on my list, any of which might have been a 10 on a different day.)

Here, in the order in which I read them, are my 9 10s of 19:

Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz. Reading Harwicz is like mainlining pure language. Her use of metaphor, her creative juxtaposition of particular images and ideas brings her prose so close to poetry it makes no difference. Her sheer outspokenness as a writer, her definitive abandonment of traditional narrative form, her willingness to break all kinds of taboos makes this novel seem almost illicit, a secret code for writers and for women writers especially. Harwicz’s follow-up, Feebleminded, which was published in English translation this May, is even more insane and just as brilliant (I gave it a 9, if you’re wondering, knocking off a point mainly, I think, because it gave me the literary equivalent of room-spin when I first started reading it. I subsequently discovered that the best, perhaps the only way of reading Harwicz is to down the whole book in a single sitting. This kind of full immersion not only allows the story to free itself from the mass of words, it also – frightening though this may sound – makes the mindsets of the protagonists seem logical and normal!)

As If by Blake Morrison. This is Morrison’s account and personal reflections on his time spent as one of the journalists commissioned to cover the trial of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, the ten-year-old murderers of toddler James Bulger in 1993. I read this book primarily for research but as a work of true crime, as a personal enquiry into the nature of violence and the nature of the British media I cannot recommend Morrison’s work enough. Incredible writing, important insights. A very tough reading experience but absolutely necessary. I shall be reading this again.  

Black Car Burning by Helen Mort. I wrote about this novel earlier in the year and love it unequivocally.

The Sing of the Shore by Lucy Wood. I admired Lucy Wood’s debut collection Diving Belles, but for me this 2018 eollection is even stronger. We’re back in Cornwall, but the elements of myth and magic Wood incorporated so seamlessly into Diving Belles have been stripped away, leaving a tougher, harsher-seeming landscape that nonetheless seems to shimmer with aspects of the uncanny. Such a strong book, a natural (southern) counterpoint to the Mort. I’m hoping we’ll hear news of Wood’s next project soon because I’m eager for more of her sensitive, penetrative, unsentimental landscape writing.  

I Am Sovereign by Nicola Barker. Pure, unadulterated, mischievous, brilliant, intelligent, tender, human, literary delight.

Slip of a Fish by Amy Arnold. Thinking about this novel now I can’t help seeing how closely, in its way, it compares with the Harwicz. The approach is different – more vulnerable and less combative – but the unsettling subject matter, the unnerving ambiguity and pain of the relationships described, makes this feel almost like a sister narrative. Slip of a Fish is a profoundly impressive debut and I hope we see more from Arnold soon.  

The Porpoise by Mark Haddon. I named this book as my ‘Tiny Tim’ in my Christmas Carol book tag, the novel that I feel is deserving of more attention than it has so far received, and I will continue to repeat my puzzlement at why it has commanded so much less than its fair share of debate and discourse in 2019. The Porpoise is a masterclass in the use of myth and fairy tale in postmodern fiction. More than that, it is a heart-pounding story, immersive and interrogative at the same time (a hard trick to pull off). This novel is full of colour and magic, clever twists of both the narrative and literary variety. It also includes what might be the sole legitimate (and literal!) use of a deus ex machina in contemporary fiction. Glorious book. Read it.   

Dark Lies the Island by Kevin Barry. I was all set to give this collection a 9 but the final story, set in Berlin, raised the threshold because I found it so moving and resonant. Every story is a gem, though, and Barry looks set to be the kind of writer who will just get better and better. I’ve been saving his Booker-longlisted Night Boat to Tangier to read in early 2020 and I can’t wait.

Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. Reading this was like seeing my own thought processes laid bare. Not the substance of the thoughts, or not always – Lerner’s ‘Adam’ is still in his twenties, and a guy – but the way thoughts cross and diverge, coalesce into images, become ideas. The way he writes about becoming acquainted with a second language, the way meaning accrues gradually to words, and sets of words – the way meaning becomes defined, rather in the manner of the initially blurred outlines of a Polaroid photograph – resonated with me particularly as I’ve never come across such an accurate rendition of my own experience. Art, poetry, history, impostor syndrome, the writer’s evolving objective awareness of what will be their material – Leaving The Atocha Station sits beside certain texts I read in 2018 (Greg Baxter’s Munich Airport, Gwendoline Riley’s First Love, Eley Williams’s Attrib, Jenny Offill’s Dept of Speculation) that have been helping to build my courage, confidence and ambition as a writer. I gave Lerner’s follow-up 10:04 a 9, simply in response to the fact that of the two, Leaving the Atocha Station is marginally my favourite. At the time of writing I cannot imagine giving The Topeka School anything less than a 10 [edit 31/12 – yup, it’s a 10]. It’s the kind of novel that defines a career. I’m still struggling to articulate what it is about Lerner’s writing that has affected me so much, so I’ll stop trying for the moment and encourage you to go and listen to Lerner himself in this excellent podcast interview. His ideas about what constitutes autofiction are expressed with clarity and deep practical insight and I loved every minute of what he has to say.

Regular readers of this blog will know I struggle with Christmas, a festival that has become unsure of its identity, hollowed out through commercialism, unrealistic expectations and personal stress, and with December in general, with the light decreasing and the encroachment of, well, Christmas. I’m thinking that next year I might organise a special meal and evening of ghost stories for the solstice as a strategic counterattack – December 21^st is like a breath of light and sanity for me, always has been – but in the meantime, this winter has been made easier by my morning runs. Leaving the house each morning at around 7:30, I have seen the light leach back into the sky, the sun rise in a wash of red and blazing orange above the firth. The physical contact with the outside air, the sense of the world as planet has been a matter of spiritual sustenance and renewal. The days have seemed longer, more resilient, and Christmas day itself was made special by taking part in the morning swim at Scalpsie bay. The weather was… cold but incredible, as was the experience as a whole, in fact. I’ve never done a winter swim before and as a first this was unforgettable. Two books also have helped to anchor me through the disappointments and uncertainties of this past month: Under the Rock, by Ben Myers and Ghostland, by Edward Parnell. Both these works evoke and examine ideas about landscape, belonging, grief, creativity, resistance and inclusive heritage that feel powerful and relevant to me and I thank them for being there.

Huge thanks to everyone who has supported me this year, who has read this blog or read The Dollmaker or found interest or joy in any of the books or films I have ranted or raved about. A happy new year to you all, and here’s to new adventures and new directions in the months to come.      

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for everyone, and as Christmas is traditionally a time for fun and games, I thought it would be good to play one. There’s a tag going around on Booktube at the moment based around Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and in between rushing to finish some review commissions before the end of the year I’ve greatly enjoyed watching readers’ videos detailing their choices. The tag was invented by Booktube regular Lauren Wade – you can see her original video here – and my own choices are below:

1: The Ghost of Christmas Past – A book that was a childhood favourite

There are so many I could choose, of course, but I’m going to plump for Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer. This is a time-slip story that in its melancholy and in its slight edge of danger has the feel of a ghost story, which makes it particularly appropriate for the season. As with so many favourite works from childhood, I never actually owned this book – I had to keep going back to the library whenever I wanted to read it again, which was often. I think I might treat myself to my own copy – finally – in the new year.

2: The Ghost of Christmas Present – A recent book that you think will become one of your all time favourites

I’m planning to write a best-of-year post around this time next week, so more recent favourites to follow, but for the purposes of this tag I’m going to pick Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. This was published in 2011, so an open question as to whether it actually counts as recent or not, but as I read it for the first time this year I think it qualifies. I cannot imagine ever falling out of love with this book, or with Lerner as a writer. The way he talks about art, poetry, the art of translation, the interaction of past and present, duplicity, uncertainty – this is a portrait of the artist as a young man that will stand the test of time for sure.

3: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – A book coming out next year that you’re most excited about

The list of books I want to read next year is already well into double figures (David Mitchell’s Utopia Avenue, Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock, Emily St John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel, Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands…) but if I had to pick one to top that list it would have to be The Liar’s Dictionary, by Eley Williams. Her debut collection Attrib. made such an impression on me I think it’s fair to say it changed my writing life. The synopsis for this new book sounds so far up my street it’s practically living in my attic. I can’t wait to see what Williams has come up with.

4: Bah, Humbug! – A book that everyone else loves that you just can’t stand

This isn’t going to be a popular opinion (and I guess that’s the point), but I’m going to have to pick Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments. I love Atwood’s work, I love everything Atwood stands for. But come on, this novel is weak and massively overhyped. I’m just going to come out and say it: The Testaments should never have been written, much less won the Booker (Lucy was robbed).

5: Bob Cratchit – An old dependable that you always recommend

I’m sure the list of books I habitually recommend is overlong and predictable, so I’ll pick one of the weirder ones from it and go for Keith Ridgway’s Hawthorn & Child. I am obsessed with this book, by what Ridgway does with the crime genre. In fact, I think I’m due a reread…

6: Tiny Tim – An underhyped book that you think deserves more love

Zero hesitation here in pushing Mark Haddon’s The Porpoise. This book made me cry just because it’s so excellently written. The treatment of myth, the mixing and merging of genres, the sheer joy of this thing. And what a wonderful ending. I adored it literally from the first page. I cannot understand why this book isn’t making more waves.

7: Today? Why it’s Christmas Day! – What’s a book that always gets you in the mood for Christmas (apart from A Christmas Carol)?

Well, that’s going to have to be Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. For Christmas read Christie-mas. Job done.

8: The Muppet Christmas Carol – Your favourite film adaptation of a book

This is really difficult. I’m torn between the obvious Christmassy ones – Sidney Lumet’s Murder on the Orient Express (see above), Sidney Lanfield’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, Jack Clayton’s The Innocents – and adaptations I love that have no Christmas connection – Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, John Schlesinger’s Far From the Madding Crowd, David Lean’s A Passage to India – so I think I’m going to opt for Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between, which although it is set at the height of summer I’m convinced I saw for the first time at Christmas. This film had a profound effect on me and I love it still.

Wishing all readers of this blog a peaceful and magical festive season, stuffed with good books, good food and great ghost stories. See you back here soon for my end of the year book roundup and plans for 2020.