The Tin-Kin

WINNER OF THE SALTIRE SOCIETY'S 'SCOTTISH FIRST BOOK OF THE YEAR' Bars on the window split the moonlight intae squares. The sky's far away. The cold flagstone on the floor and a dark ceiling that folds in on me. I look for the door, get just a sense ae it, a solid blackness shut tight in the pit ae my stomach... When her aunt Shirley dies, Dawn finds herself back in her claustrophobic home town in northern Scotland for the first time in years. In a forbidden cupboard in Shirley's flat she finds an album of photographs, curling with age, showing a Traveller community in the 1950s. A young couple poses on a beach, arms wrapped around each other; two little girls in hand-me-down kilts reveal toothless smiles; an old woman rests her hands on her hips, her head thrown back in blurry laughter. But why has her aunt treasured these pictures secretly for so long? Dawn's need for answers leads her to a group of Travellers on the outskirts of Elgin. There she learns of a young man left to die on the floor of a cell, and realises that the story of her family is about to be rewritten... Weaving between narratives and decades, The Tin Kin is a beautiful moving novel about love, hardship and the lies and legends that pass between generations. It is a striking, unforgettable debut.

Dettagli