Book review: macCloud Falls, by Robert Alan Jamieson

As I have said before, many novels have the equivalent of a Freudian slip. In this work it comes on page 139, where the Edinburgh bookseller and central character, Gilbert Johnson, is reminiscing about his time among the Scottish literati (a scene which itself is a homage to a similar moment in Alasdair Gray’s 1982 Janine). “And yet, and yet, some take it all far too seriously. Writing and all that. A lot of the books he handled were simply curate’s eggs, with something to commend but faults aplenty”. There is much to admire here, but there are also significant problems. I very much admire Robert Alan Jamieson’s A Day At The Office – in fact, I think it a neglected classic – and although Da Happie Laand was slightly raggedy, it was admirably ambitious and intriguing.