night exposures

Combining pressing geopolitical urgency with a subtle and gentlelyricism, as we have come to expect from Gerry Loose, his new bookranges wide, broad and deep, to settle back home in the Scotlandre-inhabited by Sweeney the king, deranged and fleeing humanity, and alilting nine day walk from coast to coast across Scotland’s heartland.With narratives from Nuremberg, which contrast city and individualcitizens with its long and terrible past, and then stories of an islandlife – not as insular as might be imagined – in a Finland where anythingor nothing may happen, with or without a Luger pistol, this book has aquiet insistence on personal experience.A unique take on the naming of endangered species here could be seen asa metaphor for what the ordinary people in these pages – and theirwould-be leaders – might in turn become.Expressive, formally inventive, Loose’s seventh full collection nightexposures lives right into its title: shining light into murky andoverlooked corners which some might wish to be kept in the dark.