Snake Road

It’s the other baby I think about most, the one Gran spoke of the day I told her I was pregnant. I used to picture my own baby, her chalky face round as a clock, but now there’s this other one. Aggie is struggling to make sense of her life, but she’s determined to make sense of her gran’s life, even if everyone else thinks she should be concentrating on other things, like her faltering marriage. Back in the family home grandmother Peggy nests at the top of the house, rarely leaving her room. She says she’s making her way to heaven, but when Aggie moves in again she soon realises that things are far from heavenly in the Coppella household. Snake Road is a tale of loss and hope. Told through the unblinking eye of Aggie, a family history is revealed that breaks and heals in equal measure. Stepping into difficult emotional terrain, Sue Peebles has written a heartbreaking novel filled with astonishing empathy, gentleness, wit and beauty.

Reviews of Snake Road

"I ADORED Snake Road. Couldn't put it aside…so gentle and wise and uniquely observed. There can't be another Scottish novel, or indeed contemporary one, I will like more this year… a brilliant and beautifully written novel" Alan Warner "A deeply humane tale of memory, loss and the struggle to understand a family's past" Metro "The "sacred geometry" of ageing and the timeless measuring out of love are what sustain this subtle, beautiful book" Guardian "A brilliantly perceptive novel of loss and love" Scotsman "Writing of this extraordinary quality and depth is only ever to be welcomed, embraced and, hopefully, suitably rewarded" Scotland on Sunday "Wise, memorable and written with a lightsome delicacy… It is wonderfully wry and occasionally laced with despair and menace" — Alan Warner Herald "Beautiful prose and anguish conveyed throughout the text in a tender, yet irrevocably witty and sometimes self-depreciating manner…Peebles writes with an effortless empathy towards common everyday emotional and family struggles. This intergenerational journey is quite beautifully written, yet in an easy to follow and light style" Nudge "Perceptive and humane, this is a memorable novel" Good Book Guide "I ADORED Snake Road. Couldn't put it aside…so gentle and wise and uniquely observed. There can't be another Scottish novel, or indeed contemporary one, I will like more this year… a brilliant and beautifully written novel." Alan Warner "Brilliantly perceptive novel of loss and love" — David Robinson The Scotsman