I had an incredibly in-depth and wide-ranging chat with old pal Ali Braidwood over on his Scots Whay Hae! podcast, where we talked about EVERY SINGLE BOOK I’ve written over 20 years. Ooft. If you have the stomach for it, here it is, or watch us blether on YouTube.
I’ll be chatting to the mighty Val McDermid about the book at my local Portobello Bookshop on Tuesday 21st April. I suspect we’ll talk a lot about music and drugs and maybe seagulls. There will also be another special musical performance, different from last time. You can get tickets here and order special signed and dedicated copies of the novel from the bookshop’s website.
The band I was in at the time the book first came out – Northern Alliance – put out an album as The Ossians, called The Macpherson Tapes, playing songs from the novel. Meta as hell, right? You can listen to it anywhere you stream your music, or download it from Bandcamp.
So when I first submitted the novel to my editor, it had lyric quotes from other bands at the start of each chapter. My editor helpfully pointed out that this would cost literally thousands of pounds to get clearance, so I wrote some Ossians lyrics instead.
But you can listen to the playlist of all those other bands and artists here. Don’t say I’m not good to you.
The book is going on a lovely blog tour, starting today, details below. Thanks to Anne Cater for organising. Huge thanks to all the book bloggers for their time and consideration in writing reviews, as always.
My second novel, The Ossians, is back from the dead today. My publisher Orenda Books have produced a brand new edition with a beautiful cover by Mark Swan and a terrific introduction by Val McDermid. Special thanks to Karen Sullivan at Orenda, as always.
You can buy the paperback here or at your local independent bookshop.
You can buy the ebook here.
Connor is twenty-four: brilliant, broken, and out of control. He’s the swaggering frontman of The Ossians, a Scottish indie band on the brink of signing a major record deal.
Desperate to make their mark, they set off on a two-week winter tour across Scotland’s cities and hinterlands ― a last-ditch attempt to find fame, purpose, and themselves.
But the tour soon spirals into a surreal, chaotic odyssey. From seedy bars and snowbound towns to a final, defining Glasgow gig, the band hurtles through a whirlwind of seagull massacres, botched drug deals, a mysterious stalker, radioactive beaches, bomb-testing ranges, epileptic fits, riotous Russian submariners, deadly storms, epiphanies, regular beatings and random shootings.
Raw, darkly funny and wild with energy, The Ossians is a gloriously anarchic story of rock’n’roll obsession, national identity and self-destruction ― and what it means to belong: in a band, in a country, in a life unravelling at speed.
Folk were losing their shit (not really, but they said nice things):
‘Packed with seedy, sticky bars, sullen punters and morose reflections in deteriorating weather, there is an atmospheric beauty to The Ossians’ ― Independent on Sunday
‘The authentic ring of a man who’s been there’ ― The Guardian
‘Johnstone is good at describing the excitement, boredom, sniping and bonhomie of a touring band at the transit-van end of the career arc’ ― The Times
‘A blast’ ― Scotland on Sunday
‘A powerful and moving commentary on the country and its defining myths’ ― Ian Rankin
‘A drug-fuelled, counterclockwise state-of-the-nation rock ’n’ roll tour captures where we were at better than any modern novel I’ve read’ ― Irvine Welsh
‘So exhilaratingly authentic, you can hear the chords and smell the vomit’ ― Christopher Brookmyre
‘A gripping, compelling road trip around modern Scotland’ ― Niall Griffiths
‘This is This Is Spinal Tap for Scotland’s lost generation. Johnstone has taken a small story of a small band lost in a small country and created an epic’ ― Ewan Morrison
‘Entertains in the uncharted corners of an unseen Scotland’ ― The List
I’ve put together a Spotify playlist of Scottish indie bangers from around the time the book was first published – Franz Ferdinand, Belle and Sebastian, The Delgados and much more. I’ve also chucked in a couple of tunes from the band I was in at the time – Northern Alliance – because why not, eh?
I was interviewed for The Herald by Teddy Jamieson, who also interviewed me when the book first came out, so it was a crazy trip down memory lane for both of us. I look grumpy in the picture because it was absolutely freezing on Portobello Beach that day.
Tombstoning has been on a lovely blog tour, thanks to Anne Cater for organising. It’s so weird seeing new reviews for a 20-year-old book, but it’s incredibly gratifying to read that the novel has stood the test of time. Huge thanks to all the book bloggers for their time and consideration in writing reviews.
My debut novel Tombstoning is reborn today. My publisher Orenda Books have produced a 20th anniversary edition of my first book, with a beautiful cover by Mark Swan and a fantastic introduction by Chris Brookmyre. Special thanks to Karen Sullivan at Orenda for making this happen.
You can buy the paperback here or at your local independent bookshop.
You can buy the ebook here.
Your best mate just fell off a cliff in mysterious circumstances. You were the last person to see him alive. What do you do?
If you’re David Lindsay from Arbroath, you leg it – and don’t go back. Not for fifteen years.
Then Nicola Cruickshank – yes, that Nicola, the girl you always fancied but never had the guts to speak to – gets in touch. She wants you back for a school reunion. At the very place it happened. Of course you say yes. Not to lay ghosts to rest, but because you still fancy Nicola.
The thing is, if you are David Lindsay, then returning to Arbroath isn’t going to bring closure. Because when someone else tumbles off the cliffs – an act the locals now call tombstoning – David has a choice: run away again, or finally find out why people around him keep dying…
The book made a bit of a splash back in the day:
‘Very funny, with a touching and believable romance thrown in’ Kate Saunders,The Times
‘[A] pacy debut thriller. . . Johnstone skilfully coaxes the reader into identifying with these difficult-to-love characters and maintains the tension and drama’ Metro
‘[Leads] to comparisons with the Scots writer Christopher Brookmyre … with a touch of romance [and] a gripping action sequence in the final chapters’ Scotsman
‘Detailed and atmospheric descriptions … funny and sparky dialogue’ Sunday Herald
‘Excellently written, intriguing storyline, and different from anything else around. A very impressive debut’ Allan Guthrie
‘A brilliant new author … a rollicking tale of mystery set in Auld Reekie and the east coast town of Arbroath…’ The List
‘A vibrant and engaging debut, by turns humorous, irreverent and poignant’ Bill Duncan
‘A seductive and thrilling evocation of what lurks beneath the surface of small-town Scotland – or, indeed, small-town anywhere’ Christopher Brookmyre
Come and hear me and Chris Brookmyre talk about Tombstoning TONIGHT at the Portobello Bookshop. There will be banter and music and all sorts. Tickets here.
My debut novel Tombstoning is getting a new lease of life, a twentieth anniversary reissue by Orenda Books, complete with new introduction by Chris Brookmyre. I’ll be chatting to Chris about it at my local Portobello Bookshop on Wednesday 25th February. I suspect subjects will include Scotland’s drinking culture, school reunions, the misery of watching football at Gayfield Park and much more. There will also be a special musical performance that I’ve never done before. You can get tickets here and order special signed and dedicated copies of the novel from the bookshop’s website.
It’s the tenth birthday of Granite Noir, and this year’s festival is coming very soon. I’ll be there in Aberdeen on Friday 20th February talking to the lovely Bryan Burnett about two decades as a published writer. I’ll also be playing a couple of tunes as well, so consider yourself warned.
The good people of Edinburgh International Book Festival are running Paper Trails, a winter mini-book fest at Muirhouse Library, and I’m delighted to be appearing on Wednesday 11th February, chatting to Nyla Ahmad about twenty years of sweary nonsense. (Warning, this even will probably also contain vaguely relevant live music.) It’s FREE but ticketed, go here to sort yourself out.
Doug Johnstone 