To Be Continued…

James Robertson (Penguin, £8.99)

Review by Alastair Mabbott

If there’s one important lesson we’ve learned from fiction, it’s that when animals or inanimate objects start talking to you it’s probably a sign that your life has fallen into a bit of a rut.

The case in point here is Douglas Findhorn Elder, who turns 50 while on the top deck of a bus on Lothian Road, running late for a funeral.

He’s a former staff member of a national newspaper, The Spear, who has taken voluntary redundancy in the hope of freelance work that never materialised.

His widowed father is in a care home suffering from dementia, and Douglas has moved back into the old family home now that his former partner has made it clear that she doesn’t want him around any more. Her children, effectively his stepchildren, seem to have little time for him either.

When Douglas finally buttonholes his old editor to ask for the promised work, he’s rewarded, somewhat to his surprise, with an assignment. The editor wants to run a series of articles taking the pulse of post-referendum Scotland, and his plan for the opening piece is for Douglas to interview the all-but-forgotten author Rosalind Munlochy on the eve of her 100th birthday.

She lives in a particularly inaccessible part of the Highlands, and Douglas’s journey there will prove to be arduous, perplexing and a turning point in his stalled life.

But this all lies ahead of him on the evening when, while trying to relax on his patio, he’s engaged in conversation by a toad called Mungo. Mungo turns out to be quite the conversational sparring partner, with an intelligence, perceptiveness and general knowledge far outstripping what one would expect from a member of his species. Duly impressed, Douglas decides to take him along for the journey.

James Robertson, in a mischievous mood, keeps us on our toes by sowing seeds of suspicion that something is deeply out of joint with Douglas Findhorn Elder’s world. At various times, we wonder if he is simply going mad, or if the novel Douglas has started writing is intruding on the real world, or if he is a puppet in some unfathomable conspiracy.

The obstacle to any logical explanation is the troubling existence of Mungo, the talking toad. Robertson has constructed his novel in such a way that it’s almost entirely inexplicable.

In the midst of all this madness, though, is a warming and light-hearted story about fate, love, family and second chances, into which Robertson smuggles some serious points about people’s perception of the Highlands.

Along with Rosalind’s grumbles about popular misconceptions, there are frequent references to books like Whisky Galore, Brigadoon and The Thirty-Nine Steps which make it clear that most people’s understanding of the Highlands is largely formed by romantic, escapist fiction. Running alongside that is a theme of multiple and fractured identities. But these serious questions are embedded in a life-affirming, endearingly absurd novel with both a heart and keen sense of humour.