Benbecula
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- US$9.99
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A Globe 100 Best Book of 2025
Booker-nominated Graeme Macrae Burnet returns to the historic Scotland of His Bloody Project to tell the multi-layered story of madness and murder in the MacPhee family.
During the summer of 1857 on the distant Scottish Island of Benbecula, Angus MacPhee, returning from a fortnight’s work at a house a few miles away, seems to have lost his mind, forcing his family to keep him shackled to his bed. When he is finally allowed to go at large, his erratic behaviour leads to the conviction that he should be committed to an asylum.
Five years later, Malcolm MacPhee is living alone in the house where his brother’s madness led to horrifying ends. Isolated, ostracised by his small community, Malcolm is haunted, the stench of his brother's crimes lingering as the reek cleaves to the thatch. Is he afflicted by the same madness? And to where has his sister Marion disappeared?
Drawing on letters, asylum records, and witness statements, Graeme Macrae Burnet returns to the historic Scotland of His Bloody Project to construct a beguilingly layered narrative about madness, murder, and the uncertain nature of the self.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Burnet (Case Study) delves into the circumstances behind a shocking crime in this eerie tale. In 1857 Scotland, 30-something narrator Malcolm MacPhee's younger brother Angus returns to the bleak isle of Benbecula after spending two weeks working on a neighboring island. Angus is in such an agitated state that his family ties him to his bed until he calms down. One day soon after, his three siblings are called to fetch Angus from the local church, where they find him wildly ringing its bell, and they shackle him again. After he's freed, he bashes in the heads of his aunt, mother, and father with a rock while Malcolm; their older sister, Marion; and their youngest brother, John, are out collecting seaweed. Malcolm's account oscillates from bawdy depictions of Angus's youthful transgressions, such as his compulsive masturbation, to the aftermath of the murders some years later, when John and Marion are missing for unknown reasons. The novel's devilish appeal lies in the intoxicated and isolated Malcolm's narration from within the confines of his family's "skullhouse," where he muses about his own morality ("It's not that I am wicked, at least I do not think I am. I am neither good nor bad. I simply am"). The author once again proves his mastery of moody psychological thrillers.
