Already into August with a bump and I started work at the school with the kids last week and it was rough as though I have the same kids, the same room, the same role, we've moved up to middle school, so I know nothing. I don't feel part of the team yet, and no one knows what to do with me, so I'm drifting until we get settled in. It's great being back with the students, but school is much easier when it's just teachers.
No poetry collections so far for the Sealey Challenge. I'm beginning to doubt I'll manage much. I read fiction before bed. It's my wind-down activity before sleep. I can't read poetry then or not a whole collection as I can't focus well enough. Fiction keeps me engaged just enough to last a half hour until the melatonin kicks in. I think I'll maybe read a poem a night from a new/old collection I'm excited about.
I'm still reading through my Scottish book haul pile. I just finished The Second Cut by Louise Welsh. I read and enjoyed her first novel The Cutting Room back when it first came out and actually read a chapter as I was in a writing group with Louise for a brief time before it was published. Even in draft, you could see that the book was going to be a success, rich details of character and place, an intriguing mystery plot.
The Second Cut is a follow-on with the same main character Rilke, an art and antiques auctioneer in Glasgow after a 20-year break. The post-Covid world is different in many ways, but greed and crime are the same and Rilke becomes involved in mysterious events through his job and his social life when a friend mysteriously dies. Welsh captures a different side of Glasgow, Grindr hookups intermeshed with the antiques world while delving into its criminal side that hits both. As with many novels in the crime/mystery genre, the who done it isn't as important as the character's development and journey. I found myself caught up with Rilke as he unravelled the plot, his friendships and loyalties and those he could not bring himself to trust. I know authors often hate to get boxed in with a character in a series, but I wouldn't mind reading more with Rilke. A great piece of Tartan Noir writing.
I also read Hex by Jenni Fagan this week. It's a short book, but I rattled through it in a few sessions as I was so caught up in the character of Gellis Duncan, a young girl tortured, examined, tried and executed as a witch in Scotland in 1591. The novel is part of Polygon's Darkland series which looks at events in Scottish history with a new eye. In Hex, Geillis is visited in her cell on the night before her death by a modern witch Iris who crosses the ether to find her. She brings Geillis small comforts, but also tells her women are still hurt and killed for their beliefs and for just being a woman in our time. It is a touching and beautifully written book that screams and cries for women throughout history. Scotland has apologised for the witch trials recently but has yet to pardon the women. Hopefully, books like this will raise awareness of this dark side of Scottish history.
