Why read Morvern Callar?

Book cover of Morvern Callar

Book description

An utterly unforgettable novel that portrays a vast internal emptiness by using the cool, haunting voice of a young woman in Scotland lost in the profound anomie of her generation—from “one of the most talented, original and interesting voices around” (Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting).

Morvern Callar, a low-paid employee…

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Literary fiction

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Why read it?

1 author picked Morvern Callar as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Iain Hood

Author

Ah, were you ever going to shout the famous question, “Why’d you do it!?”, at a character, it would have to be at Morvern.

Another book that grabbed the filmic imagination, this time of Lynne Ramsay, Morvern has the quietest moment of madness on this list. She finds her boyfriend, whom she never names but gives him a Godlike uppercase H whenever He is mentioned, dead by his own hand on the floor of their flat and coolly accepts the fact.

Then, as a sort of civic duty and not to cause a fuss, she chops him up and buries…

From Iain's list on The best Scottish books about moments of madness.