Gutter #2: A Review by Euan McClymont

Gutter is a brave and important venture. It focuses on contemporary Scottish writing but not in any limiting sense of those born in the country; rather in the healthy sense of all and any writers currently based in Scotland.  The opening editorial enters them into this ‘small-p political’ landscape, one of reduced Arts Council funding stifling development and adding to the challenges facing up-and-coming writers. The outlet that Gutter provides for these writers is essential.

But what is actually on offer here?  The magazine has a simple but striking typography-based design — it’s no surprise that co-editor Adrian Searle works as a graphic designer. The magazine includes several surreal cartoons on the subject of writing, and a reviews section providing thoughtful and considered information on new UK publications. Gutter features a broad range of formats — plenty of poetry and extracts from forthcoming novels — but it’s inevitably the short stories that draw the most attention, largely due to the relatively well-known names involved as well as simply the high number of them.

The short stories cover a range of themes, styles and settings, but one reoccurring elements is the dislocated and uncertain nature of modern Scottish city life in Edinburgh and Glasgow.  The setting is well-captured in pieces like Eugene Dunbar’s ‘Jackie’, Linda Cracknell’s ‘Turning Soft’ and Paul Haughton’s ‘Up The Wall’. For those unfamiliar with urban Scottish writing, it’s marked by a sense of uncomfortable transition with middle-class newcomers living alongside older low-paid or unemployed people in the same half-decaying, half-renovated old neighbourhoods, in cities where bustle and dense population can suddenly give way to the disconcerting gaps caused by demolition and the abandonment of hopeful business opening and closing with equal rapidity. There are also stories here which extend far beyond this situation, taking the reader to Eastern Europe, Lebanon, Spain, the US and elsewhere: these detours take the writing beyond parochial obsessions in a way which makes clear its strength and confidence.

The overall quality of work here is high, without doubt.  Any problems I had with the collection could be boiled down to an over-fussiness in the narrative presentation of some pieces and the re-treading of well-worn subject matter without adding new insight. This is perhaps a case of the local perspective; particular issues of conflicted class loyalties, male misbehaviour and the representation of dialect have become so well-worn in Scottish writing that they are often reduced to a series of easily recognised gestures.  The problem is not the subjects themselves, which remain important, but the lack of freshness and insight in how they are approached. These shortcomings, however, only affected a certain portion of Gutter‘s content.

Of the writers featured in this edition, I recognised the names of about a third, and was acquainted with the work of slightly fewer. Obviously this will vary from reader to reader, but it’s fair to say that the editors have adopted a shrewd strategy in their selections — they’ve included a few “names”, well-known current Scottish writers such as Alan Bissett and Rodge Glass to raise the magazine’s profile and act as a draw, whilst devoting a large proportion of the space to up-and-coming or underexposed writers. As it happened, the pieces by well-known writers were not the strongest work on display. Perhaps it’s a case of my current personal interests, but I felt most drawn to those stories, often by writers I had never heard of before, which were quieter in tone and simpler in design yet contained subtle surprises and points of insight.

Eugene Dunbar’s ‘Jackie’, for example, uses an almost casual tone to present a touching yet unsettling take on alcoholism, while Nada Cabani’s ‘Dear Monsieur Marx’ skilfully shows us the impact of war from the perspective of a confused adolescent. Sophie Cooke’s novel extract Recording 34 is notable for the controlled coldness of the narrative voice, giving a sense of steely determination with an ominous edge.  Christopher Wallace’s short story ‘C Minus 5 Days’ deserves a special mention: a complex account of mind-altering PR presentations and the coded backroom machinations of modern politics where the complex narrative scheme feels integral to the subject matter. The piece rewards several re-readings, and I’m not even sure that I’ve extracted all possible meaning from it yet.  All in all, Gutter magazine is an exciting project deserving of our future support.

Gutter is available from guttermag.co.uk.

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Euan McClymont blogs at tentativeblogger-andy.blogspot.com