Following the publication of his first novel, Stone Over Water, in 1989, Carl MacDougall, who has died aged 81, said he did not know why it had taken him so long to produce his first full work of fiction. He had hardly been inactive up to that point, having published a retelling of Scottish folk tales, A Cuckoo’s Nest (1974), and two collections of short stories, A Scent of Water (1975) and Elvis Is Dead (1986), but while these were much admired, it was the novel that signalled the arrival of a major figure in Scottish letters.
The name of its protagonist, Angus MacPhail, was not selected at random but was an intentional play on the word “fail”. However plucky he was in coping with multiple problems, Angus was seen – and saw himself – as a failure, and it was implied that his failings could be taken as a wider metaphor for the condition of Scotland.
