Siphonophore

My debut novel, Siphonophore, is now available through Valley Press and bookshops.

If you order through Valley Press, you can currently get 10% off by entering the code ‘SAVEMACG’ at the checkout.

https://www.valleypressuk.com/book/154/siphonophore

MacGregor is desperate to return home. Unfortunately, he’s marooned in the Gulf of Darién, following independent Scotland’s doomed colonisation attempt at the end of the 17th century. Worse still, he’s a character in a novel whose author is dying, and he’s running out of time.

As the author’s preoccupations, memories and spiralling thoughts start to pollute MacGregor’s world, he finds his narrative eroding and his escape routes blocked. Desperately clinging to hope, MacGregor is determined to keep his Creator writing long enough to deliver him home. But will he be able to drive the story to its end before his Creator reaches theirs?

Presenting itself as a historical novel, Siphonophore fragments into a palimpsest of colonial misadventure poked through with the literary and pop-cultural hooks that have grounded the dying author’s life. A through line from writers along the lines of B.S. Johnson to Enrique Vila-Matas leads the reader to the dual reckoning of both the writer and the written.