On Forgiveness

Introduced by Tom Crawford. The compelling saga of Chris Guthrie is continued in this, the middle volume of Grassic Gibbon's great trilogy A Scots Quair. The scene has moved to the small community of Segget, where, after Ewan's death in the First World War, Chris has come to live with her second husband, Robert Colquhoun, an idealistic and liberal minister. Cloud Howe offers a brilliant evocation of small town life set against post-war economic hardship and the General Strike of 1926. Chris loses her baby and has to fight for a sense of her own identity in a world where only the land—and Chris herself—seem to endure with honour. Robert Colquhoun, wracked by war-ruined lungs, has to wrestle with his ideals and a spiritual crisis which will eventually kill him. Grassic Gibbon was already living in England when he wrote his great work. The incomparable artistry of Cloud Howe makes his self-imposed exile all the more poignant.