Perseverance Place
1890 Edinburgh. When Brabazon Nairn’s husband Duncan is bankrupted, they and their two teenage sons, Henry and Laurence, must start over, taking up residence in Perseverance Place. They sell the mansion house, and the creditors agree to let Brabazon take over the management of the brewery. First to call upon the new neighbours is Nellie Warre, wife of head brewer Alex. Brabazon’s first brew they christen ‘Mrs Nairn’s Number One’. Duncan is ill, and it’s serious—Parkinson’s. Someone is in the brewery, late at night, and she discovers Alex dead. Someone had pushed him down the ladder. Mhairi in the Outer Hebrides is raped by Dugald Stewart, and she has a son, but her mother says either she or the bairn has to go. She goes to work in the kitchen of a convent but finds it hellish, so, she runs away. Mhairi takes a room in the Place and soon endears herself to the Nairns, nursing Duncan in his final days while Brabazon runs the brewery. Her family have emigrated to New York, her baby Calum with them. The elder Nairn brother, Henry, is interested in her. But there is long-standing resentment and rivalry between Henry and his brother Laurence.
This Scottish family saga is a beautiful novel. We get to know all the tenants in the Place, and they feel very real. The writing is wonderful. There are beautiful phrases like ‘ships’ masts leaning confidingly together’ in the harbor, and gorgeous words like ‘debouched’. I got a bit exhausted reading about suffering and then more suffering. Then, when the family is prosperous again, it’s good news and then more good news. It could have continued forever, taking up the children, then the grandchildren. If there is an overlying theme, I suppose it’s—perseverance—starting anew and keeping at it.
