The House with the Green Shutters

The novelists of the time depicted the small town life in Scotland in a romantic and sentimental way, the 'Kailyard School' and included J.M. Barrie and  Ian Mclaren. The House with the Green Shutters takes a sobering look at the realities of life in rural Scotland. The novel describes the struggles of a proud and irascible merchant, John Gourlay, against the spiteful comments and petty machinations of the envious and idle villagers of Barbie, thought to be based on the village of Ochiltree. After the arrival of the railway, Gourlay's position deteriorates and he begins to pin his hopes on his neurotic son, John, who fails him at every turn. His scatterbrained wife and daughter live in terror of his temper and take refuge in novelettes and daydreaming. The symbol of the family's prosperity is their expensive house in the middle of the town.