The Crow Road: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ Iain Banks (Author)
Key Phrases: big jobbie, crow road, Uncle Rory, Uncle Hamish, Grandma Margot (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Prentice McHoan, the irrepressible hero of Banks's wily novel whose loves include drink, cars, girls and history, returns from university in Glasgow to his family home in Gallanach for his grandmother's funeral, his thoughts turn to his uncle Rory, a travel writer who disappeared eight years earlier. When Prentice runs into Janice, an old girlfriend of Rory's, the two wonder together if Rory has gone away the Crow Road (Scottish for died), and Janice reveals that Rory gave her a folder of his poems and notes before he disappeared. Rory's writings are tantalizingly cryptic and turn out to include outlines for a novel-in-progress titled Crow Road. Fueled by his uncle's notes, his own curiosity and a good bit of brown liquor, Prentice sets off to find his uncle in an engaging narrative that admirably balances bawdy Scottish humor, crafty character development and some good old-fashioned mystery. Prentice finds his closure—for better or for worse—and things are tied up neatly (maybe too neatly) by the end. Readers unfamiliar with Banks's prodigious output have a great starting point here. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

This novel was originally published in the UK in 1992 and was the basis for a popular BBC series. Banks himself has said the novel is “about Death, Sex, Faith, cars, Scotland, and drink.” What he doesn’t say is that it is also darkly funny as it follows ne’er-do-well Glasgow student Prentice McHoan’s struggle to come to terms with his family, his beliefs, and his burning, unrequited love for beautiful Verity Walker. From its startling opening sentence (“It was the day my grandmother exploded”) to its bittersweet conclusion 500 pages later (“I raised my arms to the open sky, and said, ‘Ha!’”), Banks revels in techniques ranging from saucy dialogue to hilarious first-person narration to intense descriptions of class, place, and religion. The Scots dialect and sudden shifts in time and point of view may, at first, be confusing, but readers who persevere will be richly rewarded. A deeply felt portrait of a young man who, in between rounds of pints and an illegal substance or three, learns to face up to the darkness of life and love. --Joanne Wilkinson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 500 pages
• Publisher: MacAdam/Cage; Limited Edition edition (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596923067
• ISBN-13: 978-1596923065
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #942,474 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good shot at being his best, April 17, 2003

By	Michael Battaglia - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Crow Road (Paperback)

While I won't go so far as calling this his masterpiece (mostly because he's still fairly young and his real masterpiece is still lurking within him somewhere) this is probably his most consistently enjoyable and amazing book and the best one to thrust upon family and friends saying, "See? See? He is a genius." All of Banks' novels (yes, even Canal Dreams) have something to offer the reader, but previous (and future) novels all were quirky in one way or another and while his writing and plotting was so good it didn't matter, sometimes it felt like the oddness was masking what he really wanted to say. Not so in this book. He focuses on the people of Scotland, specifically the McHoan family and peripherally the Watt and Urvill families, all with different social and financial backgrounds, all with family members as different as the people you know. His characterizations are amazing, about a third of the book is told in a third person perspective while the rest is told by middle son Prentice . . . yet every character feels absolutely real, even the people who only show up for a few pages. All have different ideals and beliefs and ways of living and the fun is watching all that clash. The first third of the book might turn some folks off at first as Banks takes his time setting the background, shifting backwards and forwards in time and showing the main two generations of the family at different stages on their lives. Once you get used to it, it's not that difficult to figure out who is what and what period of time you're looking at, and he does a brilliant job at making the sections echo and inform each other, so even though they're out of sequence they feel like they're in sequence. For me, these sections make the book, as he details some of the magic of growing up in Scotland as a young lad, and an excellent job of showing one generation growing older and doing its best to make way for the incoming crew, and so on. His people and their relationships feel real and I wonder how much of this was taken from Banks' own life, but honestly it really doesn't matter. Maybe he made it all up. Who cares? It takes up a huge chunk of the novel but it's so well done I don't think I could stomach removing any of it. There's also a central mystery to the book and the later portions of the novel deal with it specifically, and that's where all the little bits and hints he dropped in the early scenes comes into play. But in the end it doesn't even really matter, and the mystery itself never overtakes the story of people and their families just living. This novel works on almost every level, on a literary, emotional, symbolic level, he crams everything he can into it (since it is basically about life) and all of it works beautifully. It makes for almost compulsive reading and the characters go beyond resonating into almost becoming real, so that when any of them die, it feels like a real loss, but the book merely mourns and moves on, because in the end that's all anyone can do. I also like how the book leaves questions unanswered for the reader to ponder, just like in real life when not everything ties up as neatly as we'd like. In case you haven't figured it out from my heaps of praise, this is probably my favorite "regular" Banks novel (Use of Weapons is the best Iain M Banks book) and comes with the highest recommendation, it's like nothing else he had done and yet it's undeniably his work. It gives me great hope that when he does come out with his absolute masterpiece, it's going to be truly amazing indeed. But for now, we have this.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Banks' Best (so far), September 23, 2005

By	John Jackson (los angeles) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Crow Road (Paperback)

I have only read two Banks novels. The Wasp Factory was pretty unimpressive. Very dark and twisted (which I enjoy), but the story was a bit weak and there was really nobody to root for.

The Crow Road, on the other hand, was a truly superb novel. Beautifully written. Dark and funny, great setting, with very interesting characters. The setup may feel a bit tedious but once the action starts it becomes a real page turner. For people who haven't read Banks, this book has similiar feel to Ian McEwan's "Atonement", and Donna Tartt's "Secret History." (Both FANTASTIC novels). And I would put this novel in their league without hesitation. After the disapointment of Wasp Factory, Banks has shown his true colors with the Crow Road. Read this book!!

Warning!!! Spoiler here!!! Stop if you get "spoiled" easily!!!


There is even a sub-plot about the main character's relationship with a friend/love interest, that in many other books could have ended up being very "sappy" and ruining the edgy-ness of the tale. But Banks brings it forth with surprising subtlety and it totally works with the rest of the story.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gets Better with Each Reading, July 23, 2008

By	Vesta Irene (the Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

(What's this?)

This story opens with our erstwhile, coming of ager Prentice McHoan at his Grandmother Margot's funeral. She's about to blow up, he's wearing one black sock, one white. Prentice has come home to the Scottish town of Gallanach for the funeral from university, where he's mostly spending his mind on drink, death, sex, drugs and, of course, himself.

Prentice is so into himself, he doesn't see what's going on around him much of the time and to say the least, he has relationship problems. Imagine how this affects him when he finds out the love of his life is his brother's girl. However, I should mention Prentice has neglected to declare his love. Further complicating Prentice's life is the fact that his family seems to die off in quirky ways. Gran fell through a roof, dad is killed by lightning as he climbs a church lightning rod in defience of God.

Prentice's Uncle Rory has been missing for a decade and Prentice decides to find out why. Is he alive? Dead? Just gone? Prentice is determined to find out, but meanwhile he has his life to get on with in this humorous, dark story about love and morality and so much more.

Many years ago I bought my first copy of this book at London's Heathrow Airport, was half through the five-hundred pages when we landed at JFK. I changed planes, made it just in time and I finished the book just as we were landing at LAX. Back then Mr. Banks shifting the timeline in the novel bothered me quite a bit, but now that my timeline has shifted quite a bit, I'm not bothered at all. I've read this book about a dozen times and each time it's as if I've never read it at all, so good it is.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene