A Time to Keep | Book Review – Matthew Richardson

A Time to Keep

George Mackay Brown

Polygon Books

ISBN: 9781904898657

£7.99

‘It was early spring. Darkness was still long but the light was slowly encroaching and the days grew colder. The last of the snow still scarred the Orphir hills. One sensed a latent fertility; under the hard earth the seeds were awake and astir; their long journey to blossom and ripeness was beginning. But in Hamnavoe, the fishermen’s town, the lamps still had to be lit early.’

Review

I was first introduced to the work of George Mackay Brown by an academic who came to Ayr Writers’ Club to speak about his work. She spoke of his fiction being centred around the Orkney Isles where he spent most of his life, and of how he captured those Orcadian communities in his writing. I read ‘Simple Fire’, a selection of his short stories, before moving on to ‘A Time to Keep’, his own arrangement of work.

The sense of place which binds the stories in ‘A Time to Keep’ together is all-pervasive. Like all good writers, Brown ensures that we do not see the mechanics of this geolocation; rather, it reaches out to us over the thrashing surf, the stony fields, and around the walls of the isolated crofts. This isn’t to suggest that the stories are twee; death, betrayal, loneliness, and sadness are interspersed with happier themes in a compelling snapshot of island life.

In what is no doubt intended to be praise, a Guardian journalist writes on the back cover of my 2006 edition

‘George Mackay Brown finds more diversity of subject and mood in these islands than most writers would see in a city street’.

This is a rather cringeworthy city-centric lens through which to view Brown’s work. The Orkneys comprise some seventy islands populated by over twenty-thousand people. Any writer worth their salt would be hard pressed not to find diversity of subject and mood. This small irritation aside, it is true that we see life writ large amongst the fishing boats, the cottages, and in the bars of Brown’s islands.

Some of the stories in this collection are glorious. In ‘Eye of the Hurricane’ we explore the hidden tragedy behind the alcoholic Captain Stevens. In ‘A Time to Keep’ a man’s pride and stubbornness spells doom for his newlywed. In ‘Celia’, one of my favourite short stories by any author, a dimly-lit, atmospheric cobbler’s shop provides the setting for addiction, despair, and redemption. This is one of those collections where you’d be hard pressed to pick a dud story. ‘A Time to Keep’ is a book to truly immerse oneself in.

*Thanks for reading, folks. My recent short stories include ‘Rendered Soft‘ and ‘Across the Glassine‘. Find my other reviews below*

Sarah Moss – Summerwater

Stephen King – 11.22.63

Damon Galgut – The Promise

Francine Toon – Pine

Robert Winder – Bloody Foreigners

P. G. Wodehouse – Very Good, Jeeves

Michael Palin – Erebus: The History of a Ship

Hilary Mantel – The Mirror and the Light

Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet

Raynor Winn – The Salt Path

Samantha Harvey – The Western Wind

Diarmaid MacCulloch – Thomas Cromwell: A Life

Peter Carey – A Long Way from Home

W.C. Ryan – A House of Ghosts

Val McDermid – A Place of Execution

Richard Cohen – How to Write Like Tolstoy

George Orwell – 1984

John Sampson – The Wind on the Heath

Michelle Paver – Wakenhyrst

Jess Smith – Way of the Wanderers

Zadie Smith – Feel Free

Max Hastings – Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975

Bernard MacLaverty – Grace Notes

Ernest Hemingway – In Our Time

Andrew Roberts – Napoleon the Great

Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights

Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale

Kamila Shamsi – Home Fire

Annie Proulx – Brokeback Mountain

Anthony Doerr – All the Light We Cannot See

Ellipsis: Three magazine

Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird

Jon McGregor – Reservoir 13

Colson Whitehead – The Underground Railroad

Amor Towles – A Gentleman in Moscow

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.