The Crow Road by Iain Banks
The Crowd Road is an intelligent, imaginative and highly descriptive book which follows the life of the main character Prentice McHoan and his family in Scotland during the early 1990s.
Throughout the 500-page story, life, love, death and religion are all covered extensively as the reader experiences the thoughts and activities of Prentice during his early twenties.
It is a critical period of his life and the story begins at the funeral of his grandmother. There are to be five more deaths, a birth, a wedding and plenty of drunken activity in-between to keep the reader intrigued.
Published in 1992, The Crow Road is in the era of new age comedy, Brit pop and written a year before Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting. It’s not as drug-fuelled and the characters are more middle-class than in Welsh's story, but the culture of life during this time still flows through the tale.
Despite the excellent standing the book has, you are left in a love / hate relationship with The Crowd Road. There are sections which are funny, emotional and very poetic, but it could have been just as good a novel if it had been half the size.
On occasions it is unnecessarily detailed with many pages adding little to the overall storyline. Too many times The Crowd Road comes across as though this is Prentice’s diary of all his thoughts, activities and family connections, covering not only the present but during his childhood too.
Some readers may find it hard work to maintain their level of interest and stick with it. There comes a point when you have to decide is it worth the effort or move onto another novel. This could arrive during the first chapter or halfway through, but it’s likely to happen.
Sometimes putting in a little extra work can be rewarding and it would be a shame to half-read The Crow Road. My advice would be stick with it because it is worth it, but don’t blame me if at the end you wish you’d made the decision to read something else.
The Review of Books score: 3/5
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