Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides to find that little has changed except for him. He returns to the windswept croft and the two pillars of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and lay preacher in the local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian whose steady warmth helped Cal weather the sudden departure of his mother. Cal privately wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son's long hair, strange clothes, and seeming unwillingness to be Saved. But Cal isn't the only one in the croft house who is keeping secrets. As lambing season turns to shearing season, the threads holding together the community together become increasingly frayed, and nothing will remain as it was before.
A muscular narrative with scrupulous technique. It’s his finest work yet ... Stuart’s prose is gorgeous and his plotting strategic; nothing is lost. A throwaway item in an early chapter loops back like a boomerang hundreds of pages later ... [A] nuanced tapestry ... [A] generational talent.
Superb ... Intriguing in its particularities but timeless in wisdom, John of John offers hope that relinquishing shame creates freedom to be true to oneself. It's irresistible and an instant classic.
Ruminative ... In the contemplative, reverberating novel John of John, the outwardly simple family dynamics of a religious Scottish family are questioned and reevaluated.
