His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae (Man Booker Prize Finalist 2016) Hardcover – Box set, October 18, 2016

In the spring of 2014, I embarked on a project to find out alittle about my grandfather, Donald 'Tramp' Macrae, who wasborn in 1890 in Applecross, two or three miles north of Culduie.It was in the course of my research at the Highland ArchiveCentre in Inverness that I came across some newspaper clippingsdescribing the trial of Roderick Macrae, and with the assistanceof Anne O'Hanlon, the archivist there, discovered the manuscriptwhich comprises the largest part of this volume.Immediately upon finishing this latest Man Booker nominee, I turned back to the author's introduction to check whether I had been reading genuine documents about a true case, or the imaginative products of a clever author with an uncanny sense of style. I think the latter, but even now I cannot be quite sure. The larger part of this book is, as Macrae Burnet tells us, the memoir written in 1869 by 17-year-old Roderick John Macrae at the request of his solicitor while he is awaiting trial in Inverness Castle. He freely admits to killing Lachlan Mackenzie (commonly known as Lachlan Broad) and two other people in the former's house in Culduie, Wester Ross, in order to relieve his father of the persecution he was suffering at Mackenzie's hands. From beginning to end of the book, there is no dispute about these facts; all that remains to be filled in are the details, motivation, and the question of moral guilt.Roddy Macrae's memoir takes up the first half of the book. It is preceded by various written statements made at the time by neighbors, the local schoolteacher, and the Presbyterian minister, which show a wide variety of opinions, revealing the character of each writer quite as much as that of their subject. It is an extraordinarily compact way of depicting the small crofting community, the various rivalries within it, and the constricting power of the Kirk. The latter part of the book consists of reports of the trial and its aftermath. Burnet is pitch-perfect in capturing the tone of depositions, official documents, and newspaper reports, but nothing is astounding as Roddy's narrative itself, which not only nails the style of 19th-century Scots prose* (think Stevenson) but also recreates the social and moral world in which the tragedy plays itself out.Culduie is a real place, on the west coast of Scotland a little bit north of the Isle of Skye. Beautiful though it seems to tourist eyes, in the 19th-century it must have been a place of feudal squalor. Here and elsewhere, huge swaths of coast and mountain would be owned by a Laird, and used largely for the purpose of hunting and fishing. The lands would be managed by a Factor, who would assign local jurisdiction to a Constable elected from each area. The crofters lived in little more than hovels, occupying their houses and farming their land at the pleasure of the Laird, and subject to arbitrary rulings on the part of the Constable. Reading this portion of the book made me very angry indeed, not only at the grossly unfair exercise of class privilege, but at the bovine acceptance of it by most of the local people. Here is a snatch of conversation overheard by Roddy at the annual Highland Gathering:I fell in behind two well-dressed gentlemen and eavesdropped ontheir conversation. The first declared in a loud voice, 'It iseasy to forget that such primitives still exist in our country.'His companion nodded solemnly and wondered aloud whether moremight be done for us. The first gentleman then expressed theview that it was difficult to assist people who were so incapableof doing anything for themselves. They then paused to drink froma flask and watch a knot of girls pass by.This attitude is echoed by that of the Presbyterian Minister, Mr. Galbraith, who speaks of "a savagism" that the Church has only been partially successful in suppressing. He has no difficulty in asserting that Roddy is a throwback to the primitive type, a noxious individual, enslaved to the Devil. Burnet may have used Galbraith as a scathing example of religion at its worst and least compassionate (he based him, apparently, on a real figure), but there is another aspect to his Presbyterianism that is not much developed in the novel, but which I see as centrally important. The willingness of Roddy's father and his sister Jetta to submit to Lachlan Broad's tyranny is the Calvinist doctrine of Predestination in its crudest form:You must not say such things, Roddy. If you understood more aboutthe world, your would see that Lachlan Broad is not responsible.It is providence that has brought us to this point. It is no moreLachlan Broad's doing than yours or mine or Father's.Jetta, who has second sight, tells him that she has foreseen Lachlan's death. The combination of Gaelic superstition and Presbyterian fatalism finally propels Roddy to his act. So we see two theories of his crime: class and religion. The trial, however, will focus on the question of mental confidence. But here we discover something else: that Roddy is not the trustworthy narrator we had thought.** All along, we have been proceeding towards understanding and even sympathy—but then something happens to kick us in the gut. From this horrendous point on, halfway through the book, neither Roddy nor the author is any more to be trusted. The novel becomes a genuine cliffhanger, even as it sinks deeper into tragedy. It is really a superb achievement.======*Also as in Stevenson, the text is scattered with dialect Scots words—including the two murder weapons, a croman and a flaughter. Oddly enough, Burnet places his glossary halfway through the book (54% in my Kindle edition). Sassenach readers would be well advised to bookmark it!**In terms of the combination of unreliable narrator with a 19th-century Scottish crime drama, I thought of the novels of Jane Harris, GILLESPIE AND I and THE OBSERVATIONS. Reviews have also compared HIS BLOODY PROJECT to books such as Margaret Atwood's ALIAS GRACE and James Robertson's TESTAMENT OF GIDEON MACK. I am sure many other comparisons are possible. But that does not lessen the stunning originality of the book we have.

Although this book about a crime in a 19th century crofting community in the Scottish Highlands appears deceptively simple and straightforward (despite the collective structure), don’t be fooled. Well, you may be initially misguided by your own interpretation of whether this is a “true” account, or faction, or entirely concocted by the author, so smoothly does he present this record of events. Moreover, one could spend a semester class surveying this book and still have more to discuss and debate. We know from the start that 17-year old Roddy Macrae, an impoverished son of a crofter, committed three brutal murders. The question is WHY he did it, and if he was “morally sane” (insanity without delirium) at the time.This riveting bag of treats and tricks give the reader an ostensible advantage: with all the advances of contemporary criminology, anthropology, and psychology, we of the 21st century should feel superior to what passed as expertise back then, when criminals were primarily classed based on their heredity, mentality, or physiology (such as size of head, brow, or “low” physical attributes). But Burnet has some surprises in store for us, as we are led to the end, perhaps to one conclusion, only to fall into a trapdoor that the author so cleverly placed at our feet. He can get away with it because it is we, the readers, who make the deliberate choices based on each discovery and reveal.The cast of unreliable narrators and the author’s talent to manipulate perspective upend us with its many contradictions. The reader is given clues to Roddy’s nature, but never a consistent picture. This requires a surgical insight into another person’s mind, which we do not posses, and can only strive to connect the dots. “One man can no more see into the mind of another than he can see inside a stone...”.We know early on that Roddy killed his neighbor, Lachlan Mackenzie (known as Lachlan Broad), a malicious, mendacious man who abused his power as village constable to personally persecute the Macrae family. When I started this book, I had zero understanding of 19th century crofting (tenant farming) in the Highlands, but came away with a vivid picture of the patriarchal, hierarchical structure, and the effects of this essentially feudal system--harsh physical labor and deprivation on the poverty-stricken citizens of Culduie (near the Isle of Skye, as I understood it). It was a sociological 360 view of a community in metaphorical chains.I could read this book repeatedly and continue to ponder the veracity of witnesses and experts alike. For example, Roddy was described as a moron; particularly intelligent; a shy child; an idiot who talks to himself; a sexual deviant; an animal lover, an animal abuser.We are asked, as the witnesses are in court, to speculate and conclude what was going on inside Roddy Macrae’s head, and whether he was morally sane when he committed the three murders—“his bloody project.” He admits his guilt to all who ask, and writes a personal account of his crimes at the behest of his consul, Mr. Sinclair, which itself takes up half the book. The rest of the case files includes police reports; medical reports; testimony of some of the nine families that live in this tiny, impoverished community; his father; his schoolteacher; the minister of the parish; so-called expert testimony from a Perth prison surgeon; documents of the trial itself; the whims of the publishing industry; editorial columns in the newspapers; and a short epilogue.The reader is taken on a harrowing journey until the bitter end. And, yet, it is often mordantly comic in tone, despite the heinous accounts of the murders. There’s a chilling Kafkaesque scene where all the crofters are gathered to collect seaweed from the loch to spread on their lots to help nourish the soil, a ceaselessly tiring job that takes all day and is a regular event in the village. After it is completed, Lachlan Mackenzie (Lachlan Broad) directs Roddy’s father to return his seaweed, arbitrarily declaring that, since it was done without permission, he must put his seaweed back into the sea.Another time, Roddy is forced to accompany his father, John, to see the factor, the constable’s overseer. The picture of diminishment is complete here, when John asks to see the rules and regulations, and is thus accused by the factor of trying to subvert the rules and regulations by attempting to familiarize with them. The absurdity of this arbitrary abuse of power by the factor engulfs the Macraes, and leaves them nowhere to turn for justice.HIS BLOODY PROJECT gives so much meat to chew on—the justice system, father-son relationships, the class system, how urban perceives rural in the mid 1800s Scotland, sexual power, propaganda, and much more. Read this more than once!

it is a good book, but it is not really for everyone. it is kind of dark, in some way.

I'm not sure. The novel is so much like Burial Rites by Hannah Kent that a comparison is unavoidable and unfortunately this one comes off second best. It's a good read, almost rollicking in parts, but despite the vaguely unusual structure of incorporating various first person narrators and 'documents' the story itself just doesn't have enough meat to take the book beyond a yarn, albeit a good one. Recommended as a good, easy read.

I found the story gripping as well as providing a fascinating insight into what life was like in Scotland in 1869.

A curious tale, well told and able to hold the interest of the reader very well. It leaves many questions unanswered.

We know "whodunit" from the outset but the facts leading up to the murders are fascinatingA great "slice of life" showing how a small group of people existing in severe poverty still have a sense of dignityGraeme Burnet has done a great job.