My Review of Fairy Rock: A Crime Novel in Verse by Stephen Watt

My Review:

Fairy Rock is a beautifully written, deliciously and disturbingly dark crime novel told as a series of linear poems. It's like nothing else I have ever read and plunges the reader into the seedy underbelly of Glasgow. Characters such as Claire, Deek, Danny, Greeber and Seamus appear, disappear and some but not all reappear. Stephen Watt has a gift for story telling and make the reader sympathise with the cast of characters. We never get to know them or understand them but that does not stop us feeling for their plight and reaffirming how grateful we are not to be them. The distance between the readers and the characters perfectly exemplifies the 'them and us' attitude of the many who cross the street to avoid the homeless druggie and never want to know of the suffering that has led to this point. Watt makes sure though that the reader has the back story and the unpalatable truths such as incest which have led the characters to where they are now. 

I particularly enjoyed, and appreciated, Watt's use of poetic devices too. The sibilance creates a sense of surrealism which is the perfect antithesis for the earthiness of the language. The poems ooze skill and flair and are a sight to behold.

Thanks to Kelly at Love Books and Red Squirrel Press for my gifted copy.