The Quarry Wood, although published well before Sunset Song,
inhabits a similar world; the progress of its heroine could almost be
the alternative story of a Chris Guthrie who did go to university.
Compassionate and humorous, the grace and style of Shepherd's prose is
heightened by a superb ear for the vigorous language of the
north-east.
The Weatherhouse, Shepherd's masterpiece, is an even more substantial
achievement which belongs to the great line of Scottish fiction dealing
with the complex interactions of small communities, and especially the
community of women - a touching and hilarious network of mothers,
daughters, spinsters and widows. It is also a striking meditation on the
nature of truth, the power of human longing and the mystery of being.
The third and final novel, A Pass in the Grampians, describes Jenny
Kilgour's coming of age as she has to choose between the kindly
harshness of her grandfather's life on a remote hill farm, and the
vulgar and glorious energy of Bella Cassie, a local girl who left the
community to pursue success as a singer, and has now returned to
scandalise them all.
The Living Mountain is a lyrical testament in praise of the
Cairngorms. It is a work deeply rooted in Shepherd's knowledge of the
natural world, and a poetic and philosophical meditation on our longing
for high and holy places.
This omnibus edition of Shepherd's prose works reveals how her
sensitivity and powers of observation raise her work far above the
status of regional literature and into the front rank of Scottish
writing.
