Three Craws by James Yorkston

They say write what you know, and James Yorkston clearly understands the terrain of his debut novel Three Craws, set in the East Neuk of Fife. Biographical detail bleeds into his narrative of a young artist returning to rural origins and reuniting with a friend left behind, whose life remains inherently connected to the land.

It’s a corner of the country which was home to the Fence Collective, to which Yorkston was of course attached. So you would expect his debut novel to adopt a certain musicality and the author plucks a fine melody here from phonetic Scots, unrecognisable from the lazy generic variety often found elsewhere. This work is filled with precise teuchter terminology: authentic and refreshing.

Yet with any debut you expect error, and of course it’s present. While Yorkston’s two central characters are believable in themselves, their loyalties occasionally are not. The reader is a casual observer rather than closely intimate to their relationship. The third ‘Craw’ – essentially the dramatic catalyst – is underused and undefined; noticeably further from Yorkston’s sphere of experience. 

Yet the tragi-comic Three Craws rarely offers less than an enjoyable read, while providing comment on a modern generation’s relationship with their land and culture, and touching upon grander themes of friendship and belonging. Yorkston has a ready-made readership in his loyal musical fanbase, but his post-kailyard treatment of rural Scots' lives deserves to be read beyond only them.