The Crow Road
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Review
Banks has woven a warm and funny story, rich with characters and adventures. An utterly enchanting piece of fiction...it marks a return to his brilliant best. NEW WOMAN (This is Bank s’ finest novel yet. INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY )
Hip and sexy humour....Bank reinforces his credentials as one of the most able, energetic and stimulating writers we have in the UK. TIME OUT (The Crow Road is tight with detail and closer observation and creates a strong sense of a particular period of growing up. THE INDEPENDENT )
Magic is the book's keynote. It echoes in descriptions of evolution that pass from the factual to the elegiac and on the mythical. It calls most insistently when intensity - of love, lust or grief - burst through limited expectations or circumstances to release poetry. THE TIMES (Banks keeps death in its place, under the boot of wit which knows that the most significant romance can blossom whilst your youngest brother is up to the elbow in Sugar Smacks looking for the plastic toy. OBSERVER )
The tense horror of the book...is done with considerable imaginative subtlety and a fine touch....This is as fine and ambitious a novel as any from a Scottish writer since the 1960s. It is also unquestionable Bank's best work to date. NEW STATESMAN (A magnificent, rambling family saga…his best novel yet. FOR HIM )
Hip and sexy humour....Bank reinforces his credentials as one of the most able, energetic and stimulating writers we have in the UK. TIME OUT (The Crow Road is tight with detail and closer observation and creates a strong sense of a particular period of growing up. THE INDEPENDENT )
Magic is the book's keynote. It echoes in descriptions of evolution that pass from the factual to the elegiac and on the mythical. It calls most insistently when intensity - of love, lust or grief - burst through limited expectations or circumstances to release poetry. THE TIMES (Banks keeps death in its place, under the boot of wit which knows that the most significant romance can blossom whilst your youngest brother is up to the elbow in Sugar Smacks looking for the plastic toy. OBSERVER )
The tense horror of the book...is done with considerable imaginative subtlety and a fine touch....This is as fine and ambitious a novel as any from a Scottish writer since the 1960s. It is also unquestionable Bank's best work to date. NEW STATESMAN (A magnificent, rambling family saga…his best novel yet. FOR HIM )
Book Description
Paperback reissue of Iain Banks' masterly novel THE CROW ROAD
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
It was the day my grandmother exploded. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It was the day my grandmother exploded. Read the first page
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Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magnum Opus,
By
This review is from: The Crow Road (Paperback)
Not just Iain Banks' biggest book, but his best in my opinion. This sprawling tale of dark family secrets and unrequited love is a modern classic and highlights Banks' talent for characterisation and believable cringeworthy situations. His heroes are never without their flaws and never lose their ability to strike a chord with the reader and such is the case with the sardonic, smart alec Prentice.
Iain Banks books are always easy to read but this one requires a tad more discipline than his others as it's not always immediately obvious which of the many characters is narrating each chapter. However, the book flows beautifully and builds to a magnificent and unexpected climax. A great read for confirmed Banks fans and the unitiated alike who wish to indulge themselves in a great read. Hats off, Mr Banks.
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the greatest British novels of the 1990s,
By Al Kitching (Cambridge, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Crow Road (Paperback)
Banks is a pretty honest fellow. As a writer he doesn't consciously set out to make his heros and heroines 'good', infact he certainly packs them with faults and foibles. A bit like real people in fact. Prentice is the same, and he's all the more enjoyable to listen to for it. "The Crow Road" is supremely enjoyable and, as has been said already, works in every way, delivering what you want out of it. When I first read it it spoke to me about the confusions of leaving your teenage years behind and the need to mature. Now, it's a rattling good murder mystery with some rather scathing politico dialogue thrown in. But there's more in the mix and you'd have to find it out for yourself. When Banks signed my battered old copy a couple of years back he smiled at the state of the cracked and dog-eared and well-thumbed book, then he wrote "Ha!" on the last page which, if you've read it, you'll understand. Love it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Then he remembered the Observatory...,
By
This review is from: The Crow Road (Paperback)
I found this to be a slow starter and I was nearly halfway through it until I started chiming with its vibe, so to speak. As a result I only reluctantly picked the book up for a while, and left it for faster moving stories. Then it clicked and I started to enjoy the book and appreciate its ebb and flow between the years and fell into the relaxed framework of the plot. I don't think it matters that this probably didn't start out to be a dark mystery, complete with a midnight attacker. I thought all that stuff was out of sync with the main stories and while it wasn't exactly a surprise, it seemed a bit outlandish and I wondered why Banks felt he had to tie things up with a bow. Ha! Indeed.This isn't as good as The Wasp Factory, which I loved. I've tried Banks as an SF writer and in literary novel mode, and I feel he now does the SF novels with more dash and aplomb. This is probably his best literary work since TWF but it doesn't reach the manic nerveless brilliance of that first book. Instead it is altogether more relaxed and probably just as enjoyable in a different way, giving an entertaining picture of a Scottish family and associated friends and enemies growing up with all the usual love fixations, pains and pangs. It has one or two moments of dread and suspense, but nothing too outlandish. Stick with it if the awkward beginning doesn't gel at first - trust me - it is worth it.
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