“Really well and unusually constructed. Filmic. Wonderfully lean
and punchy. A new major literary talent.”
Centering on a lost weekend in Edinburgh and a death in the family, we follow the fickle fortunes of our anti-hero, Robert McMillan, in Aberdeen and beyond in 1979.
Pivotal to these are those of his pal, Dave Bruce, a failed record shop proprietor, and their nemesis, Ian Gordon, an attempted Aberdonian Hell’s Angel, and those of Norrin Radd, an unlikely Dundonian surfer, Johnny Barr, a gregarious and gallus Glesca wide boy, the sensationally attractive Kim Anderson, the Little Mermaid, a self-proclaimed new toon mink and dirty fighter, Morag McPherson, the object of Bob’s affections, and Uglina, a mysterious, observant, bright, resourceful and indestructible wee girl, the unwitting connection with the chequered McMillan family history, to which the titular Rag Doll is an inanimate link, as well as being a horse whose fate chimes with Robert’s, and a metaphor for Bobby himself.
The sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, music and football of the era drive the plot to a
dénouement on Aberdeen beach, the other important inanimate player in the drama.
Along
the way we meet Thatcher’s child, the young entrepreneur Ferret, Seamus Mackay, one-time
photographer and now full-time alcoholic and blackmailer, the impossibly glamorous and
witty Tequila Sunrise girls, Bob’s grandad, a preacher of Hellfire and Damnation, the
young Earl of Caithness, a drunken swordsman, and Doris Davidson and Sandy Michie, good
citizens of Kintore.
I grew up in Aberdeen until my departure for Edinburgh University, where I got an Arts degree of sorts. After a series of inconsequential endeavours in Scotland, I moved down to London and worked in very fringy theatre before going to LAMDA and studying stage management, which was a hoot. Thereafter I bounced around the world like one of those wee balls in a pinball machine, working with people as diverse as the Bolshoi Ballet and Jamie Oliver, on every continent except Antarctica, which remains my burning ambition. I always wanted to write, but was a bit busy with the other stuff. Finally I lost patience with the Boris/Brexit bollocks, moved up to Dunoon and did it.
