At the Loch of the Green Corrie

For many years Andrew Greig saw the poet Norman MacCaig as a father figure. Months before his death, MacCaig’s enigmatic final request to Greig was that he fish for him at the Loch of the Green Corrie; the location, even the real name of his destination was more mysterious still. His search took in days of outdoor living, meetings, and fishing with friends in the remote hill lochs of far North-West Scotland. It led, finally, to the waters of the Green Corrie, which would come to reflect Greig’s own life, his thoughts on poetry, geology and land ownership in the Highlands and the ambiguous roles of whisky, love and male friendship. At the Loch of the Green Corrie is a richly atmospheric narrative, a celebration of losing and recovering oneself in a unique landscape, the consideration of a particular culture, and a homage to a remarkable poet and his world.

Reviews of At the Loch of the Green Corrie

'If you have a desire to luxuriate in the most beautiful use of the English language borne along by the love of one gifted poet for a recognized master of melancholy, then this is the book for you. It most certainly is the book for me' Billy Connelly. 'Moving and utterly memorable, a triumph' The Times. 'A ruminative, beautifully written book that is at once a biography of MacCaig, an account of a journey in North West Scotland and a captivating memoir of Greig's life as a poet, Himalayan climber and fisherman' Sunday Times. 'It is completely absorbing … and the intense self-scrutiny is matched by landscape writing worthy of Robert Louis Stevenson himself' Guardian. 'This is nature writing of the first order … a luminous hymn to life and love and our land' Scotland on Sunday.