Those Parallel Tracks
Life’s parallel tracks fascinate me. Or, at least, human beings’ ability to navigate them. They are a reflection of that dual personality propensity that lies within us all. My favourite classic writer - and fellow Scot - Robert Louis Stevenson, was also fascinated: his famous novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , is only the ultimate expression of it. It can be traced in lots of his other novels too. I had a very real life- experience of this last month. Picture this: I am getting ready for my annual fortnight in The Hebrides and I trawl round the bookshops in the area (by email) and ask if they want any more copies of my Hebridean novel, The Ghost of Erraid , for the tourist season, which is everyone's bread and butter there. I get several re-orders, gratifyingly . And I get an invitation from one shop to be their featured author at one of their ‘Book Chat” events. Brilliant! Now picture this: when my mother died suddenly at the age of fifty, I was twen...