The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld

 

Anyone who's visited the coast near North Berwick will have seen the Bass Rock sitting out to sea, dominating the horizon. In the same way it looms over the lives of the characters in Evie Wyld's latest novel. 

The story follows three women, close in location, but separated by time. 

First chronologically is Sarah in the 1700s - accused of witchcraft and running for her life. 

In the mid-twentieth century, Ruth is trying to start life again, after the loss of her beloved brother during WW2.  She's moved to North Berwick with her husband, a widower with two boys, and is having difficulties fitting in to this new life with a ready-made family, in a strange town.

Sixty years later, in more or less the present day, Viv, the daughter of one of those sons, is journeying between life in London and North Berwick. Her father has died, and the house needs to be cleared of personal belongings, including some belonging to Ruth, before the house is sold. 

At first the storyline seems to jump about here and there, but persevere as it builds into a compelling but disturbing read. For all three women life is defined by rules created by men - how they should behave, what they are allowed to do (sometimes even think) - and, of course, if men are provoked to violence it's the women's fault. 

Wyld's writing is perceptive and empathic, bringing the characters to life through close observation of their actions. An initial feeling of slight weirdness builds imperceptibly into a feeling that dreadful things could be about to happen at any moment. 

Throughout, Bass Rock is there in the background, a constant brooding presence, watching every move. In part its presence seems malevolent, an all-seeing eye which will take action if anyone steps out of line (a bit like The Prisoner's 'Rover'), but at times I felt it could be seen as an unattainable land of safety.

Maryom's review -  4.5 stars

Publisher - Jonathan Cape

Genre - adult fiction, literary fiction

Edinburgh Book Festival - author event - Evie Wyld and Amy Sackville

Amy Sackville

By Maryom

Sometimes at literary events it's difficult to see why certain authors have been paired together but it wasn't on this occasion  - the Chair's introduction almost made them seem like twins! Both, amongst a raft of other awards, are winners of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for authors under 35; both work with books and

Evie Wyld

words in their 'day job' - Amy Sackville teaches creative writing at the University of Kent and Evie wyld works at an independent bookshop; both were here to talk about their second novels and both of those novels are set on islands!
I've been aware of Amy Sackville for a while - I reviewed The Still Point for Bookmunch back in 2010 and absolutely adored it - but Evie Wyld is a new, almost accidental, 'find' and I was in the middle of reading her latest novel, All the Birds, Singing 

Evie Wyld's All the Birds Singing is a tale of an Australian woman breeding sheep on a cold, wet British island, trying to escape from her past and seeking redemption for her past actions. Amy Sackville's Orkney follows a mismatched couple on their honeymoon. The husband begins to wonder how well he knows his much-younger wife and why she was so insistent on their travelling to this remote northern island.

The event started as is usual with the authors reading from their respective books, then chatting with the Chair. The subjects touched included research and future plans - and the authors suddenly diverged from their twin-like image. Evie Wyld had been researching very practical matters -  understanding the fundamentals of sheep farming and how to shear them, though not actually having a go herself - while Amy Sackville had immersed herself in myths of selkies and mer-people. For the future too, their paths are taking seperate ways;  Amy Sackville is planning a research trip for her next novel to somewhere warm and sunny; Evie Wyld is moving to a different genre with the submission of a graphic novel.

I for one will be watching very closely what both these authors do in the future.

All The Birds Singing by Evie Wyld

review by Maryom

Jake Whyte is the sole resident of an old farmhouse on an unnamed British island, a place of ceaseless rains and battering winds. It's just her, her untamed companion, Dog, and a flock of sheep. Which is how she wanted it to be. But something is coming for the sheep - every few nights it picks one off, leaves it in rags. It could be anything. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, rumours of an obscure, formidable beast. And there is Jake's unknown past, perhaps breaking into the present, a story hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, in a landscape of different colour and sound, a story held in the scars that stripe her back.

All the birds singing is an amazing serendipitous find for me. I was scrolling through my Twitter feed and noticed someone RT Evie Wyld asking if anyone would like to review her book and including a link to the first chapter. I followed the link, read the chapter and knew I wanted to read more! Up to this point I had no idea who Evie Wyld was - then I started discovering she's won all sorts of awards and been included in the Granta Best of Young British Novelists List. So, obviously I'm late coming to the party. At least I'm here now.

All The Birds Singing is the story of Jake, an Australian woman, now keeping sheep on a wet and windswept British island. It soon becomes apparent that she's running or hiding from something in her past; that she's put as much distance between herself and those events as she possibly can. The enormity of them is gradually revealed through flashbacks, each of which take the reader back further in time to the moment that shaped her life.

Now, someone or something is attacking her sheep. Is it merely an animal or could it be someone stalking Jake herself? The answers aren't clear cut - a lot is left for the reader to decide for themselves; how much is real? how much imagined? In this respect, it's not an easy read; the reader must think things out for themselves instead of being presented with all the answers. I definitely felt that having reached the final revelation, a re-read would bring more things to light. I like this quality in a book; the feeling that not all of its secrets have been yielded up in the first read, that I can go back and discover more. It's easy to achieve by sheer volume - no one can remember and track every plot thread of War and Peace first time through; harder in a novel under 250 pages.

On the outside, Jake is a bit of a misfit - she hasn't made any effort to blend in with her neighbours, resents having to call on them for help and generally keeps herself very much to herself. Her inner world is tormented, always expecting her past to catch up with her, and never letting her guard down, making it difficult for her to trust people or interact with them on anything more than a superficial level. Letting someone inside this fence is Jake's first step on the way to redemption and self-forgiveness...

Maryom's review -  4.5 stars

Publisher - Jonathan Cape

Genre - adult fiction, literary fiction

Buy All the Birds, Singing from Amazon