Industry of Magic & Light by David Keenan
In the prequel to This Is Memorial Device, David Keenan explores an alternative 1960s via Airdrie and Afghanistan
For most readers, David Keenan’s novel This Is Memorial Device heralded the arrival of a writer unlike any other. Set in an alternative Airdrie, it was regarded by many as a true cult novel. Five years on, and Keenan returns to Airdrie once again with a prequel, Industry of Magic & Light. As with all his fiction, Keenan is as interested in how a story is told as by the story itself.
The book is split into two parts, ‘Light’ and ‘Magic’. The former is an inventory of items in a long abandoned caravan, and it’s a truly inspired way of telling multiple stories. Among the debris we get a detective novel, descriptions of the people and places central to Airdrie’s ‘Happenings’, pictures, posters, maps, manuscripts, and much more, all of which have their own story to tell. ‘Magic’ is told through the reading of tarot cards, and transports us from Airdrie to Afghanistan, where the hippy dream is not what it seems to be.
When taken as a whole, this is not just concerned with an alternative Airdrie, but an alternative 1960s – one where magic and mysticism could be found anywhere if you just knew where to look. For the uninitiated, Industry of Magic & Light is the perfect introduction to David Keenan, who continues to pave his own inimitable way as a writer.
White Rabbit Books, out now
whiterabbitbooks.co.uk