Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published in USA
Oct 2012
448 pages
Genre: Novels
Publication Information
After five years in exile his presence is required at the funeral of local patriarch Joe Murston, even though the last time Stewart saw the Murstons he was running for his life. An estuary town north of Aberdeen, Stonemouth, with its five mile beach, can be beautiful on a sunny day. On a bleak one it can seem to offer little more than sea fog, gangsters, cheap drugs, and a suspension bridge irresistible to suicides. And although there's supposed to be a temporary truce between Stewart and the town's biggest crime family, it's soon clear that only Stewart is taking this promise of peace seriously.
Before long a quick drop into the cold, grey Stoun River begins to look like the easy option, but as he steps back into the minefield of his past to confront his guilt and all that it has lost him, Stewart uncovers ever darker stories, and his homecoming takes a more lethal turn than even he had anticipated.
Tough, funny, fast-paced, and touching, renowned storyteller Iain Banks poignantly evokes adolescence, love, brotherhood, and vengeance in a rite-of-passage novel unlike any other.
Click to the right or left of the sample to turn the page.
(If no book jacket appears in a few seconds, then we don't have an excerpt of this book or your browser is unable to display it)
"Macabre and quite impossible to put down." - The Financial Times
"Establishes beyond doubt that Banks is a novelist of remarkable talents." - The Daily Telegraph
"Starred Review. Stunning descriptions of coastal Scotland alternate with the rain-soaked violence of Ellie's brothers and Stu's painful flashbacks to his youth." - Publishers Weekly
"Contemporary, hilarious, gritty—yes, this is genre fiction, and no, the genre doesn't get much better than this." - Kirkus
The information about Stonemouth shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's online-magazine that keeps our members abreast of notable and high-profile books publishing in the coming weeks. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author of this book and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added.
Iain (Menzies) Banks was born in Fife in 1954, and was educated at Stirling
University, where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology.
He came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of
his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984.
His first science fiction novel, Consider Phlebas, was published in 1987.
He continued to write both mainstream fiction (as Iain Banks) and science
fiction (as Iain M. Banks).
He was acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers
of his generation: The Guardian called him "the standard by which the
rest of SF is judged". William Gibson, the New York Times-bestselling
author of Spook Country described Banks as a "phenomenon".
...
A love story for things lost and restored, a lyrical hymn to the power of forgiveness.
About the book
Other People's Houses
by Abbi Waxman
A hilarious and poignant novel about four families and the affair that changes everything.
Reader Reviews
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
One of the most anticipated books of 2017--now in paperback!
Visitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends books that we believe to be best in class. Books that will whisk you to faraway places and times, that will expand your mind and challenge you -- the kinds of books you just can't wait to tell your friends about.
Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info & giveaways by email.
