The Speak of the Mearns

The Speak of the Mearns, on which Lewis Grassic Gibbon was working just before his untimely death, seemed set to become a worthy successor to Sunset Song, sharing much of the autobiographical content of the earlier novel. The setting is a close rural community, sharply observed by a growing boy. The "speak", the gossip of the region, is as intense and as bitingly observed as elsewhere in Gibbon's work, but the actual territory is moved from Arbuthnott to other parishes nearby. Now the seaa plays a part in invoking the atmosphere of childhood remembered.