Notebook #7: Chris Kohler, Submarine, The House of Smalls
A special Stockbridge edition
An old hand
The other day I took a walk to my neighbourhood bookshop, Golden Hare Books, in Stockbridge. I was looking to buy one of the most talked-about novels of the summer. I picked up the hardback and checked out the blurb. I flicked to a random page and read a few lines. I asked Polly, the manager, if it was any good. Polly said it was rated highly by people whose views she respected. That was praise enough for me.
I was walking towards the till when the door to the shop opened. Two men walked in. One of the men was the author of the book I held in my hand.
What’s the chances, huh?
The Stockbridge neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where I have lived for more than 30 years, can throw such moments at you. Its cast of characters is kenspeckle. A few years ago, when I was obsessed with Nick Cave’s Higgs Boson Blues, I was sitting on my sofa reading a book and looked up to see Professor Peter Higgs himself walking past my living room window. I only figured out recently that an actor who featured in two of my favourite TV box sets from last year lives in my street. In August, during the Festival, the guy standing next to you at the Stockbridge bus stop is most likely a stand-up, a baritone or a second fiddle.
Chris Kohler was visiting Golden Hare Books to sign copies of Phantom Limb, which is described by Alan Warner as “the Scottish novel I have been waiting on for so long”
Here is the publisher’s blurb:
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