Bitterhall

Who needs an utterly engrossing, darkly playful new book? You do - and we have just the thing.

Bookshop favourite Helen McClory is back with a stunningly inventive new novel. Her last, described by no less than Margaret Atwood as “shiny dark liquorice mind candy”, signalled the rise of a bright new literary star. Now Bitterhall publishes in April and THIS event is where you can first dive between its covers.

Daniel, Orla and Tom share a flat and narrate the intersections of their lives, from future-world 3D printing technology to the history of the book, to a stolen nineteenth-century diary written by a dashing gentleman who may not be entirely dead. A Hallowe'en party leads to a series of entanglements, variously a longed-for sexual encounter clouded by madness, a betrayal, and a reality-destroying moment of possession.

Bitterhall is infused with Iris Murdoch, Kurosawa and AS Byatt’s Possession; it reveals the ways in which our subjectivity tampers with the notion of an objective reality, and delves into how we represent and understand our muddled, haunted selves.

Join us for a slightly uncanny evening, pour yourself something rich, don something dark and dim the lights for something really special.

The Writer

Helen McClory is the author of two story collections, On the Edges of Vision (Queen’s Ferry Press), a winner of the Saltire First Book of the Year award, and Mayhem & Death (404 Ink), as well as a novel, Flesh of the Peach (Freight, 2017). The Goldblum Variations – a collection of experimental micro-fictions – was published by 404 Ink, and Penguin in 2019. Her short stories have been listed for distinction in The Best of British Fantasy (2018), The Best of British and Irish Flash Fictions (2018/19), and nominated for the Pushcart prize. Helen is a part-time lecturer at the University of Glasgow and co-founder of writing retreat Write Toscana.

The Host

Eris Young, author of They/Them/Their