Damage Land; New Scottish Gothic Fiction [Paperback]

Read of the Week: There is considerable satisfaction to be had from this anthology. --The Scotsman

There is nothing hackneyed about these stories, each offering a contemporary twist on the turrets-and-ravens concept of Gothic. --The Sunday Herald

There is nothing hackneyed about these stories, each offering a contemporary twist on the turrets-and-ravens concept of Gothic.

This is a collection of contemporary Scottish gothic fiction. As well as a bloody and turbulent history, Scotland has produced some of the world's most eerie and disturbing fiction. The national psyche seethes with Tam O'Shanters and Mr Hydes, justified sinners and wasp factories, monstrous apparitions, witches, doppelgangers and psychopaths. Here, a selection of Scottish writers have plumbed their depths, creating a set of demons for a modern age: Ali Smith's neo-Nazi, Alison Armstrong's transvestite serial-killer, Brian McCabe's abominable neck-boil, James Robertson's mutant mouse, Toni Davidson's confused sado-masochist. Be frozen by Maggie O'Farrell's quiet touch or be appalled at Andrew Murray Scott's putrescent landscape. Experience fork and knife disorder with Jackie Kay or receive sinister letters from Helen Lamb.

ALAN BISSETT is an English Studies research student at the University of Stirling, and has recently completed a PhD thesis on the figure of the Devil in Literature. He was shortlisted for the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday short story competition 2000, and his first novel, (the non-Gothic) 'Boyracers', has been published recently.

From 'The Host' by Brian McCabe

So. How. Was. The. Film.

I was speaking in words but I didn't know what I was saying and my voice sounded thick and moronic and my mouth was dry and my heart was hammering and my skin felt like a cold chamois leather as I touched my face with my fingers if I was asking somebody about a film they'd been to see but nothing was normal because here in my room was a man with two heads.

For a horrible moment there was no response from anyone. Had the words come out of my mouth at all or had they come out sounding so strange that no one could make sense of them? Was it my drugs? Had I forgotten to take my drugs? No, I had taken them earlier. Had I got the dosage wrong? No, I distinctly remembered taking the correct dosage.

- Well, I thought it was not a bad film, but the book -
I felt a surge of gratitude to Jim. He had heard my question and he was answering it. He was talking about the film, thank God, so for the moment the attention of the room was not focused on me. Had anybody noticed that I was trembling and sweating and finding it difficult to speak?

I tried to pick up my glass and get it to my mouth. I couldn't help turning a little to check that the man who had been introduced to me as Douglas really did have two heads. I had seen the other head quite clearly when he'd come into the room and shaken my hand - lolling on his shoulder, as if it couldn't quite support itself. I'd had to look away as I'd said my pleased-to-meet-you.

It was there all right; I hadn't imagined it. In the dim light of my room it was difficult to see the crumpled features of the face, which was as pale as a cauliflower, but I could make out two screwed-up eyes, closed tightly under wispy, whitish eyebrows. I could see no clearly defined nose, but the lips were unmistakable - they looked dry and cracked and unnaturally old. Unnaturally old - that is the meaningless phrase that came into my mind. The face had set into an expression which was both sour and aloof. The way the lips curled down at one side and up at the other made me think of a bitter relish, as if the owner of the mouth might take pleasure in sarcasm. At the same time there was something dreadfully vulnerable in the face's frozen sneer and the way the head lolled against the back of the armchair Douglas was sitting in - to all appearances a dead appendage. And no-one seemed to have noticed it. Douglas himself seemed to have been completely relaxed, as if utterly unaware of his encumbrance. He struck me as a congenial sort of guy, probably in his early thirties. Apart from his other head, his appearance was quite ordinary. He had longish brown hair and a neat beard. He looked mildly interested in the world and had a constant, rather vacant smile. He wore a dark-blue jacket, jeans and a casual, checked shirt.

But he had another head.