Awards

• Winner of Paul Torday Memorial Prize 2020 (UK)

Overview

From the author of the prizewinning As the Women Lay Dreaming comes an evocative and highly original fictional rendering of the Isle of Lewis across the centuries. Continuing his elegiac Lewis novels, Donald S. Murray serves up a remarkable new work that sweeps across time from the eighth century to the present day. Layering interlinked stories of successive generations like blankets of peat, he allows echoes of ancient lives to surface in the present. This is a novel that mirrors the shifting rhythms of wind and tide. The struggles and joys of past lives are refracted in the heartaches and hopes of modern-day islanders. As in his award-winning previous novels, the ordinary is suffused with quiet wonder; every place and gesture carries memories and meaning. Ultimately, this is a novel about continuity. The land holds its secrets, letting the past break surface in sometimes surprising ways. Murray s compassionate gaze reminds us that time can be viewed as a circle, where the living are in constant conversation with those who came before.

Full Product Details

9781916812635

Table of Contents

Reviews

Praise for As the Women Lay Dreaming: ""Full of memorable images and singing lines of prose."" Sarah Waters ""A searing poetic meditation on stoicism and loss."" BBC Radio 4 ""A powerful novel... A poignant exploration of love, loss and survivor's guilt."" Sunday Times ""I loved this book."" Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning novelist ""Murray is an evocative painter of landscapes and a deeply sympathetic writer... a space for forgotten voices to sound, bearing witness not just to this tragedy, but to the terrible cost of World War I itself."" Daily Mail ""From the first line I know I'm in the hands of a bard and consummate storyteller. The writing is lyrical and hugely descriptive ... The history is rich and fascinating."" Historical Novels Review Praise for In a Veil of Mist: ""A moving portrait of a place and its people ... a quiet, sad but brilliant novel."" Times, Book of the Month ""A well-written and well-crafted novel from an author at the height of his powers."" Oban Times ""A rich and sympathetic portrayal of island life in all its diversity ... timely and compelling ... a novel to savour."" Allan Massie, Scotsman ""Admirably atmospheric and engaging."" Scotsman, Books of the Year Praise for The Salt and the Flame: ""Tender, wise and beautiful."" Antonia Senior, The Times, Book of the Month ""Well-researched and heartfelt ... an especially poignant story, told with an abundance of humanity and compassion."" Herald ""In The Salt and the Flame, Donald S. Murray presents the best of historical fiction: a heart-warming and heart-wrenching story set against a rigorous and well-researched past. He weaves together so many threads of the Leòdhasaich and indeed the whole Hebridean twentieth-century immigrant experience."" Jacqueline Murray, University of Guelph, in International Review of Scottish Studies (49.2, 2024), Edinburgh University Press

Author Information

Donald S Murray is a writer and poet whose work has been awarded The Society of Authors Paul Torday Memorial Prize and the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award (2021), as well as a number of honorary fellowships. His critically acclaimed books bring to life the culture and nature of the Scottish islands, and he appears regularly on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland and as a live performer.

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