I’m sitting in my office in my new house. We got the keys about two weeks ago and are finally unpacked, my books are on the shelves in their appropriate categories and order (I won’t get all High Fidelity about this, just to say it wasn’t an easy or stress-free process. For example, I have every Shakespeare play in the Arden editions, plus the sonnets and poems and Edward III in the Cambridge edition which people can’t seem to decide if it’s Shakespeare or not and what do you do? All the tragedies, all the comedies, all the histories? So where does Measure for Measure go? And Henry VIII? And no one will ever convince me that Loves Labours Lost is a comedy except in the widest and wrongest use of the word. Chronological? Then the histories all look mad with Henry VI Part II and III before Part I) and now here I am surrounded by suitcases and backpacks, my possessions spread out on the floor. Tomorrow morning at a time I’m refusing to contemplate I will begin the epic trek from Japan to Scotland. Car-Train-Plane-Plane-Plane-Car, a journey of roughly 27 hours door to door taking me through South Korea and the Netherlands. That’s right, it’s that time of year, Iain has a new book out and is returning home to convince you to buy it.
As you know by now, The Waves Burn Bright, my new novel, is about the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and focuses on an Aberdeen family and how the disaster, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and alcoholism tear the family apart. It also touches on geology, volcanology, global travel and sexual identity. You can pre-order now via the publishers, Freight, or Amazon. If you want a vandalised signed copy you can come to one of the following events and say hi:
May 17th, from 19.30, Clydebank Library as part of the West Dunbartonshire Booked Festival 2016. This event is ticketed but free.
May 19th, from 19.30, Waterstones Byres Road.
May 20th, from 18.00, Leeds Library.
May 24th, from 18.30, Edinburgh Reads at Edinburgh Central Library. This event is ticketed but free, and is nearly sold out.
May 25th, from 19.30, Bad Language at The Castle Hotel, Manchester.
May 29th, from 14.00, Word Festival at Aberdeen May Festival, King’s Campus, University of Aberdeen. The event is ticketed but free.
I hope to see some of you there.
Iain Maloney 