The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld is a disturbing novel about the violence men have inflicted on the female characters in the book over time. There are three threads in the novel - the story of Viviane (marked I) who is in Scotland to sort through her grandmother's possessions so that the house may be sold; the story of Ruth (marked II) who after the Second World War married Peter and looked after his children (one who became Viviane's father); and the story of Sarah (marked III) who lives in the 1700s and has been accused of witchcraft. The book is also divided into seven sections at the end of which is a series of short accounts of a woman suffering from the violence of a man.
I did not find this an easy book to read; not just for the subject matter but the jumping from one story to another which interrupted the flow of each story, making (in my opinion) the narrative of each section difficult to follow. Added to this, Sarah's story (III) did not really connect with the other two sections except to demonstrate that women had encountered mistreatment for centuries.
This is therefore a dark novel illustrating how the violence that may occur against women continues to affect lives. The references to the Bass Rock looming in the background add to the uneasiness existing in the novel emphasised by the characters' awareness of the presence of ghosts, who in their turn have faced violence in the past.
Winner of the 2021 Stella Prize (outstanding book written by an Australian female author)
The Bass Rock - review in The Guardian 21 March 2020
The Bass Rock in Scotland - Transceltic
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