Winter

(by Val McDermid)

This is a very writerly and very Scottish book about winter: McDermid talks about how she looks at bare tree branches in the winter as she works on her latest novel, and how she takes walks and works through plot and dialogue in her head, and also about going “guising” (like trick-or-treating but not quite) as a kid, and about Hogmanay and Burns Night. Unfortunately, I can’t help comparing an essayistic book about winter to Nina MacLaughlin’s gorgeous Winter Solstice, and this book doesn’t hit the same way for me as that one, but this was still a pleasing book to read during a very snowy winter here in New York City. There are some great moments, like when McDermid writes about “train travel through a dark landscape” and remembers a snowy train journey in Russia, or when she writes about her dad accidentally lighting a whole box of fireworks at once on one memorable Bonfire Night, or when she writes about the exhilaration of ice skating on a frozen pond as a kid. I wanted more lyricism, more of an icy/crystalline/snow-covered mood, but this did still make me want to go to Edinburgh again.