At the Loch of the Green Corrie

Description

A homage to a remarkable poet and his world. 'At The Loch of Green Corrie is more than merely elegant, more than a collection of albeit fascinating insights, laugh-out-loud observations and impressively broad erudition' - Sunday Herald 'You could easily make a case that Andrew Greig has the greatest range of any living Scottish writer' - Scotsman For many years Andrew Greig saw the poet Norman MacCaig as a father figure. Months before his death, MacCaig's enigmatic final request to Greig was that he fish for him at the Loch of the Green Corrie; the location, even the real name of his destination was more mysterious still. His search took in days of outdoor living, meetings, and fishing with friends in the remote hill lochs of far North-West Scotland. It led, finally, to the waters of the Green Corrie, which would come to reflect Greig's own life, his thoughts on poetry, geology and land ownership in the Highlands and the ambiguous roles of whisky, love and male friendship. At the Loch of the Green Corrie is a richly atmospheric narrative, a celebration of losing and recovering oneself in a unique landscape, the consideration of a particular culture, and a homage to a remarkable poet and his world.

Andrew Greig has written over twenty acclaimed books of poetry, non-fiction and novels, the most recent being Later That Day; You Know Who You Could Be (with Mike Heron); and Fair Helen respectively. Elements of these genres, along with a love of adventure and landscape, mark all his writing and give it its particular quality. A full-time writer and sometimes musician, he lives in Edinburgh and Orkney with his wife, novelist Lesley Glaister.

'If you have a desire to luxuriate in the most beautiful use of the English language borne along by the love of one gifted poet for a recognized master of melancholy, then this is the book for you. It most certainly is the book for me' * Billy Connelly * 'It is completely absorbing ... and the intense self-scrutiny is matched by landscape writing worthy of Robert Louis Stevenson himself' * Guardian * 'A ruminative, beautifully written book that is at once a biography of MacCaig, an account of a journey in North West Scotland and a captivating memoir of Greig's life as a poet, Himalayan climber and fisherman' * Sunday Times * 'Moving and utterly memorable, a triumph' * The Times * 'This is nature writing of the first order ... a luminous hymn to life and love and our land' * Scotland on Sunday *