After the Dance

Selected Stories of Iain Crichton Smith

Iain Crichton Smith, Alan Warner

• Publisher: Polygon
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780857903235
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Scottish Literature
• Index: Literature

These short stories by the renowned Scottish author demonstrate the powerful imagination that became "the wonder of literary Scotland" (Sorley MacLean, author of Eimhir ). Growing up on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, Iain Crichton Smith was raised speaking Gaelic. When he went to school in Stornoway, he spoke English. Like many islanders before and since, his culture was divided. In After the Dance, he explores that tumultuous divide and its effects on the small communities he knew so well. The stories in this volume prove that big themes—love, history, power, submission, death—can be addressed without the foil of irony. Instead, Smith reveals their resonance by rooting them in place, and giving them a voice that risks pure, humane, impassioned speech. This updated edition includes the story 'Home.'

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Murdo Leaves the Bank
• Mr Heine
• The Play
• The Telegram
• Murdo’s Xmas Letter
• Home
• The Red Door
• The Button
• Murdo’s Application for a Bursary
• The Mess of Pottage
• The Old Woman and the Rat
• The Crater
• The House
• A September Day
• The Painter
• In Church
• The Prophecy
• Do You Believe in Ghosts?
• A Day in the Life of . . .
• Murdo and Calvin
• After the Dance
• Mother and Son
• An American Sky
• Murdo & the Mod
• Sweets to the Sweet
• The Bridge
• The Long Happy Life of Murdina the Maid
• The Wedding
• The Hermit
• The Exiles
• The Maze
• In the Silence