Scabby Queen

A whirlwind of a read Clio Campbell dead in the opening scenes .A look at the wild life she lead through the eyes of those who k ew her.A book so involving found it hard to put down a compulsive read grab this book,#netgalley#4thestate

"How did you do it? How did you use words, black on white with a finite limit, slotting into a pre-designed space on a page, to describe what a person’s life had been?"

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Telling the story of a single life through the lens of various friends, lovers, and acquaintances, Scabby Queen is non linear storytelling done right. Clio Campbell is flawed, impossible to hate entirely but also impossible to really get behind. Her road to hell is paved with good intentions but she is selfish, manipulative, childish and parasitic. Obsessed with worthy causes, we follow Clio along with seemingly unconnected narratives that begin to merge into a collective story of one whirlwind of a life. It brilliantly illustrates the fingerprints that we leave on people every single day, the ripple effect that comes from just being alive and in the world. The author also touches on world events and pop culture, footnotes in the passage of time that occasionally even include real world figures.

It's possible this may be a divisive story because there are no good guys or bad guys, and no neat bow to tie up the final act. There's no love story or happy ending. People live, then they die and all that's left is how they are remembered by the people that touched them however briefly.

I really loved this deep dive into the life of Clio, an activist and musician, following her suicide. Pieced together with accounts of Clio from family, friends, acquaintances and press clippings, and moving backwards and forwards in them, this novel gives a multi-faceted picture of a protagonist that manages to remain unknowable despite all we come to know of her. With excellent political credentials, and some Scottish settings that I know really well (including the hospital I was born in and still attend), I highly recommend Scabby Queen. My only small criticism would be that in some of the narratives the characters would begin to reflect back on previous encounters with Clio and I would occasionally lose track of time and have to flip back (harder on a Kindle!) but that might just be my rubbish attention span. If you’re at all interested in music, politics or Scotland, read this when it’s published in April.

I really liked Fishnet so I was keen to read this. Scabby Queen has some passing similarities to Fishnet- they both tell the stories of a remarkable and unconventional women recounted after their deaths, but Clio- the mian character of scabby queen, is in many ways different to Rona. The book is dleiberately unsetting, it jumps around in time, and shifts perpectives to tell Clio's story, encouraging the reader to consider pertinent and sometimes difficult issues. I think it is a worthy succesor to Fishnet, and marks Innes out as a talent to watch.

"Scabby Queen" spans decades and contains many big themes which Innes handles skilfully and sensitively. There's a lot of jumping between timelines and perspectives which can be a little disorientating. Clio Campbell is a feisty, feminist protagonist whose life unfolds in layers (I love that she has Sally Bowles fingernails!). The supporting cast are also well-drawn throughout. Kirstin Innes is a strong voice in Scottish fiction and has captured the post-Independence referendum mood perfectly. I also liked that she shows how incredibly frustrating, exhausting and all-consuming activism can be. The novel evoked a whole host of emotions for me and partly summed up why I've given up social media and now choose my sources of information wisely. "Scabby Queen" is a cracking read and provides plenty of food for thought. It's a massive air punch in book form. I loved it!