Before the Swallows Come Back

I've just finished reading an absolutely heart-filling and lyrical novel by Fiona Curnow, called Before the Swallows Come Back. 

Reading Before the Swallows Come Back by Fiona Curnow feels like forest bathing on a stiflingly hot day, or being borne up in the gloss and buoyancy of a river running clean and clear. This is total immersion in the natural world. All this as background to a storyline that’s epic in scale and characters rendered so intensely that hours go by before you realise you really should pull yourself out of their world and back into your own. What a mesmerising treat!

The two central figures are Tommy and Charlotte. At the start of the story, they are on the cusp of puberty, two innocents from very different worlds whose chance encounter on a riverbank far from town becomes life-changing. For now, their lives are stable. Not perfect, but physically and emotionally secure. Tommy, the son of a travelling family and someone for whom outsiders are frightening, introduces Charlotte to the freedoms of living a more nature-led life, teaching her about river-pearls and how to negotiate the dangers of a body of water, what plants she can forage, how to weave twigs into art and basketry and larger branches into practical structures to support canvas for sleeping outdoors. For her part, Charlotte – who lives alone in a cottage with her seriously ill father – shows Tommy that not all those who live conventional lives distrust, fear and decry travellers. They pass the days of an idyllic summer together before everything changes.

Fiona Curnow has crafted an immense story, and an incredibly rich one. The plot is straightforward: these two young people are separately afflicted by crises – catastrophes – that rock the foundations of their lives. Over the course of a few years, they must learn to negotiate change. Serious change. They must learn self-reliance. Separated by hundreds of miles, each holds on to the memories of that summer spent together at the river before the swallows came back as a salve while they dream of being reunited. Along the way, they encounter more than their share of cruelty, but this is a story where good far outweighs bad. Good men like Dougie, the estate manager, a practical man who abhors the wilful destruction of habitat on the estate across the river, and who has big ambitions about rewilding. Waifs and strays like young Em, who on the face of it is chipper and feisty, brash enough to steal a woman’s purse while she’s distracted, but who clings to Charlotte in the sleeping bag at night. Tommy, Charlotte, Em and others may live a different life – an unconventional one – but this novel shows they are not ‘other’: they have the same needs and yearnings and good heart as those who live in the system. This book is peopled with three-dimensional characters, with their flaws and faults, but also their earnestness and deep longings for happiness, their intense sorrows and fears.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it wholeheartedly for the way it deals with social issues and also for that delicious immersion in the natural world. I’d say it’s a book for adults and for young people from the age of about fourteen. If you enjoyed Mick Kitson’s Sal, you’ll love Fiona Curnow’s Before the Swallows Come Back. Click on the links or image of the book cover to go to the sales page. Thank you so much, Fiona, for writing this story.

 

Before the Swallows Come Back - Excerpt from Chapter 32

As the storm raged outside and night fell, Sandy told story after story of his life on the road. The people he had met. ‘You’ll ken them, aye?’ The places he had been to. ‘Och, you must have been there an aw.’ Thankfully, it seemed that no answer was necessary. He played some tunes, sang some songs. There was barely a tune left in his gravely old voice but that didn’t matter. The meaning was there, and Tommy could imagine well enough what the voice would have been like when it held. When it was younger.

Tommy just sat and listened, hummed along to a tune, laughed at some silly adventure. Gasped at near misses. It was like being home. Like belonging. Stories were like that. They held you. Wrapped you up in them. Took you with them. Kept you alive.

When he awoke in the morning all was quiet. The storm had passed on by. The forest around sighing. Dappled sunlight playing with the window, flickering against the wall, dancing on the floor. But he was alone. No old man. No candles. Nothing but him and his animals.

Author Fiona Curnow

Author Fiona Curnow

Fiona is a Scottish writer who spent fifteen years teaching in international schools, before becoming ill and having to return home. Not one to remain idle, she turned to the Open University where she studied creative writing, completing both courses with distinction, and discovering a new passion. She has since written five books and finds it difficult to be content without a work in progress. That escape into a world of her own making is something very special! Before the Swallows Come Back was sparked by a meeting she had with a Tinker family many years ago, in rural Perthshire. They invited her to sit by their fire, outside their bender, and listen to stories. It was fascinating, inspirational and never left her.

You can keep up with the reception for Fiona's novel via her blog tour, or by following her on Twitter and Instagram.

Fiona has also published under the name FJ Curlew. You can read my previous blog post about her writing here. 

Five Glasgow Stories

Five Glasgow Stories
published by Red Squirrel Press / Postbox Press

I was born and brought up in Glasgow, so when I read that the prestigious independent publisher Red Squirrel Press planned to publish a collection of short stories set in or inspired by the city, of course I aspired to be in it. What to write, though? Red Squirrel, and their literary fiction imprint Postbox Press, have meticulously high standards. I did have a story draft which I hoped might fit, but doubts crept in. This opportunity was important to me. How could I make the story the best fit possible?

One of my first successes with short fiction was way back in November 2002, when my story Unrestricted reached the final six of the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday Short Story Competition. While it didn't go on to win this highly-regarded award with its generous £6,000 prize, it did win me some kudos, and a cheque for £500 presented during attendance at a glamorous awards night in The Tun in Edinburgh. In his introduction to the volume Shorts 5, published that same year by Polygon, editor and very fine writer Suhayl Saadi described Unrestricted as 'A story told at its very best'. It was a story written in an urban Scots dialect - a Glasgow dialect. Should I do the same now?

Mist rising from the River Clyde

Hours from the deadline, I set off walking round my local area, considering this and any other edits I could do to make my short story a real contender. I reached the decision. Yes, I would switch it from standard English entirely into Glasgow dialect. By 'entirely' I mean there would be no confining the dialect to characters' speech in inverted commas, as if held up by some narrator who speaks 'proper' English. Thank you, James Kelman, for opening my eyes to this class division - and to the woman I had a heated discussion with on a translation forum many years ago, who insisted dialect is slang and has no place in literature. I disagreed profoundly. Dialect is someone's mother tongue, and no mother tongue is any better than any other when it comes to expressing what it is to be human. My favourite quote of all time is 'a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot'. Attributed to Max Weinreich, this translates roughly as 'A language is (just) a dialect that has an army and a navy'.

And so, in a bit of a rush before the 5pm deadline, I translated my story Look Up into my own dialect and pressed 'send'. I was delighted to receive the news that it was accepted for publication along with four superb short stories by authors Christine Appleyard, Colette Coen, Charlie Gracie and Donal McLaughlin. Each brings their own unique perspective on the city, and each story is filled with heart like the city itself. 

Five Glasgow Stories was launched in Spring 2023 at a venue in the heart of the old city, along with issue 8 of Postbox Magazine, and both are available to buy direct from the publisher. Events and life in general have overtaken me in the last few months but I'm pleased to finally be able to celebrate publication through this blog post, and to express my thanks to Red Squirrel Press publisher Sheila Wakefield and to Colin Will, editor of Postbox Press.