White Male Heart

Nicoll, Ruaridh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552999016 ISBN 13: 9780552999014

Publisher: Black Swan, 2002

In the magnificent wilderness that is the Scottish Highlands, Aaron and Hugh have been friends for as long as they can remember, bound by a shared affinity for their surroundings and an increasing sense of alienation from the remote, close-knit community that is their home.

But when a young woman - fleeing life in the city and a broken love affair - moves to the area, the ties that bind the boys are slowly, irrevocably stretched to near-breaking point. And as the strain on Aaron and Hugh's friendship builds, so the violence that is endemic in the land begins to infect them both. Driven to the very edge of reason, they turn on their world to vent their frustration and anger and hurt in the only way they know, embarking on a spree of quite horrific destruction...

Product Description:

1st trade edition paperback fine In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Review:

Ruaridh Nicoll’s raw and lyrical first novel White Male Heart is about masculine angst and romantic treachery and has all the saturnine beauty of the Scottish Highlands, which provide the narrative’s backdrop.

The plot is simple enough. Two old friends, Aaron and Hugh, have grown up together amid the ruggedly lovely world of fishfarms and gillies, whippets and shepherds. But this rural idyll, if such it is, doesn’t last long. When Rebecca, a sculptress from the big city, arrives her urbanity and sophistication seem to underscore the limitations of Hugh and Aaron’s world. And her capricious beauty is even more destructive as it turns the two Highland boys into bitter love-rivals. The struggles between the pair provide the motive force for the book’s melancholy and brutal denouement.

White Male Heart is not flawless: the carefully crafted prose sometimes seems a little self-conscious and the dialogue, particularly between the sexes, occasionally comes across as stilted. But long after any such weaknesses are forgotten, the dark beauty of the book’s remarkably realised Scottish scenery still lingers. This is a seriously impressive debut.--Sean Thomas