INTERVIEW
a conductor. He goes into a pub and lights a cigarette.’ A miasma of envy wafts across the table at this point; McIlvanney is an unrecon- structed addict. ‘Then there are bigger ways, like the internet and so on. Laidlaw, like myself, is a troglodyte in that way.’ McIlvanney will not, he claims, be getting
to grips with Google Earth and WhatsApp in the interests of research. ‘I won’t navigate it, I’ll bypass it, as Laidlaw would.’ Then there’s another novel that he would like
to write. ‘It’s not talkable about,’ he says with a smile. ‘It will be a very, very strange book that maybe nobody will want to read but I want to write it.’ I admit to being intrigued. That smile again. Allan Massie described him as Scotland’s Kafka but he is also Scotland’s Rhett Butler. ‘Don’t be, my dear. Save your intriguedness.’ It seems that no one, not even his agent,
knows about the as-yet-unwritten, very, very strange book. ‘I don’t talk to Jenny. I don’t talk to anybody. Why bore people to death with what you might do? Do it and see what happens.’ It turns out that his voting intentions for
the forthcoming referendum are surprisingly similar. Despite having no faith in the factual information offered by either camp, he is voting yes. ‘There’s so much unsubstantiated rumour about it, you’ve got to close your eyes and jump. The information’s so confused, it’s all characterised by a pontifical vagueness –
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‘Why bore people to death with what you might do? Do it and see what happens’
nobody can justify anything at all.’ He doesn’t subscribe to the theory, espoused
by other yes-voting writers, that an independent Scotland would become a fecund creative hub with great scenery. ‘I don’t think that’s how creativity works. Creativity happens in spite of many things, not because you’ve got a specially nurtured environment. The best kind of creativity is a kind of defiance. It’s perfectly valid that a society should encourage its writers but I don’t think that necessarily means a great efflorescence of wonderful writing. It just creates a good atmosphere to see what happens. The best writing is always a bit mysterious. Where it comes from you are not entirely sure.’ For him, the referendum is colours-to-the-
Above: Canongate has republished all nine of McIlvanney’s novels.
mast time. ‘I think the Scots have been saying for years, because we’re partially disenfranchised by the size of the English vote, that we’re really more radical than we’re being allowed to be. We’ve had the means to profess more radicalism than we can realise. So let’s see. Prove it.’ Despite this fighting talk, he thinks we will
be staying in the UK. ‘I think the likelihood is no. I think it’s quite a Scots thing to do, to go to the brink and pull back.’ That is not his style, in writing or in deciding
the future arrangements of the state. ‘As my old man used to say in a crisis, you’ve got to shout Geronimo and jump. There’s not much else you can do.’
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