Rebecca Berg posts about one of her favorite novels, The Testament of Gideon Mack, which will be featured in her workshop Reading as a Writer: Plotting over 4 Saturday afternoons. The LA Times calls the book "Haunting, memorable, and completely compelling." The San Francisco Chronicle says, "Gideon Mack's story raises disquieting questions most modern fiction prefers to ignore."
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Man follows dog follows rabbit into a roaring ravine in Rebecca Berg's latest favorite read, The Testament of Gideon Mack. "It is a gothic novel," Rebecca says, "and a novel of ideas, and a reverse conversion narrative all in one. It's by a Scottish writer named James Robertson, and the Scottish landscape is very much a character in the book." Why "reverse conversion"? Well, the protagonist, a minister, finds not God in the ravine, but the devil. And the devil's quite a well-rounded character. Also tall, dark, and handsome. But that's not, Rebecca swears, why she loves the book. "The writing is just gorgeous, and it's so brilliantly put together. It reminds me that really, you can tell any story you want, you just have to think telling it is possible."
People who take Rebecca's upcoming four-week workshop on plot will get to read the book in full. In the meantime, here's a taste of Robertson's cliff's edge prose:
"Come on," I said, and I put my arm through hers. "Let's go and see the Black Jaws."We could already hear them. The last few days of rain had poured off the hills and swollen the upper reaches of the Keldo, and now thousands of gallons of water were being funnelled through the ravine every minute. The black cliffs were drumming with the sound of it. It was difficult to tell if the haze surrounding the trees was part of the fresh rainfall or spray rising from below.... at the path's turn, the ground fell away ever more steeply, with trees stretching from it at odd angles, some almost horizontal, their roots like clawed hands clutching fiercely at the earth. The roar and reverberating boom of the river seemed to be coming up through the soil itself, through the layers of rock, through the trunks of the trees and the very soles of our boots. Even Jasper, who had shown only curiosity towards the crashing waves at the beach, trembled a little and slowed to a walk, keeping himself within easy reach of us....But I had reckoned without the appearance of the rabbit. As we came down to the bridge, there was sudden burst of movement to our right, and a brown shape shot across the path and into the undergrowth on the other side. Jasper was after it in a second. Lorna and I both yelled at him, but he was oblivious to anything but the rabbit. I have never seen a dog move so fast. The pursuit was over in seconds, however, because the rabbit, plunging down through wet grass towards the wetter ferns and creepers which marked the edge of the cliff, took one leap too many as it strove to outpace the dog. Suddenly it was in flight, launched from the last scrape of rock into the spray-filled air. It hung there for a long second and then dropped out of sight like a flung toy.....
