Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan

​   Jenny Fagan isn’t what you’d call a prolific writer. This is only her third novel. She’s also a remarkably uneven writer in so much as none of her novels are alike. In fact, the only thing one can say for sure about Fagan is that she is immensely talented. This book showcases that amply.
My person reading experience with Fagan has been uneven too. I didn’t care for her debut, but really enjoyed her sophomore effort. And this book…well, to be fair, I didn’t engage with it on the purely emotional level as much as with its predecessor, but it’s such an awesome, awesomely impressive volume that it’s impossible not to appreciate.
This is a story of a building. It follows a building in Edinburgh for nearly a century through the stories of nine of its tenants. Each one is a separate timeline. Conceptually, it’s a masterpiece of intricate storyweaving. Stylistically, its’ a masterpiece of intricate storytelling.
And it is very stylized, took me a moment to get into – short sentences used like Van Goghesque brushstrokes to create the images and people before you. But once you do get used to the style, you realize it’s a thing of beauty. Though the main attractor for me as always remains the story or nine stories. Stories so strikingly diverse, so poignant, so interesting, so cleverly interwoven, so magical…from devil’s daughter to William Burroughs and more.
What an idea, what an execution. No wonder Fagan took her time with this one.
Oddly enough, for such an epic, it reads surprisingly quickly. Not an easy read, perhaps, and certainly it won’t be to everyone’s liking, but for the right audience this book will sing, absolutely sing, a strange haunting melody all of its own, with maybe just a dash of Scottish burr underneath. Lovely. Recommended.