A Green Tree in Gedde

By Alan Sharp, Edited by Colin McIlroy and Paul Malgrati

A Green Tree in Gedde is a multilayered, interlinked narrative of the developing lives of three young men and one young woman, all wrestling with the world and their places in it. The novel is a rebellion against the stifling orthodoxy of the so-called “swinging Sixties” as experienced in the west of Scotland, and originally gained notoriety for its frank depictions of sex and sexualities. More recently, critics have looked askance at its treatment of female and gay characters – and yet Sharp’s novel is complex, and there are subtleties here which deserve attention too. A Green Tree in Gedde is a lyrical work in praise of the centrality of the provincial, and the universality of the local. Although it remains controversial, it is nevertheless “a flagship of 1960s Scottish prose”.