About the Book
In 1981 a mother abandoned her child and drove into the night, never to return. Her disappearance was reported in the press as a fatal road accident. Her body was never found.
Thirty years later, Rowan has a child of her own. Afflicted by post-natal depression, she is convinced that she’ll hurt her daughter unless she unpicks the mystery of her past, buried deep within a commune in the remote highlands of Scotland. Leaving her young family and life in London, she returns to her childhood home to find a failed utopia shrouded in secrecy. And there, with a looming cult leader, among the rites and rituals, the sacraments and ceremonies, is a single postcard dated a week after her mother’s death. As she draws ever closer to the truth about her mother, she fears she might lose even herself.
Close Your Eyes is a powerful novel, exploring the eternal bonds of maternal love. Evoking the spirit of the 60s and 70s in its gentle, lyrical passion, it tells the secret history of a revolutionary social experiment, and, with unflinching honesty, depicts the impacts, both good and bad, that it had on its children.
About the Author
Ewan Morrison is the author of two collections of stories, The Last Book You Read and Tales From the Mall, and the novels Swung, Distance and Ménage. He lives in Glasgow.
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Ewan Morrison
Dedication
Title Page
Epigraph
Home
The Road
Ithaca
The Road Home
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Also by Ewan Morrison
Swung
Distance
Ménage
For Edna, David and Glenna
CLOSE YOUR EYES
Can ye no hush yer weepin’?
A’ the wee lambs are sleepin’
Birdies are nestlin’, nestlin’ the gither
Dream Angus is hirplin’ oer the heather
Dreams to sell, fine dreams to sell
Angus is here wi’ dreams to sell
Hush my wee bairnie an’ sleep without fear
Dream Angus has brought you a dream my dear
Hear the curlew cryin’ o
An’ the echoes dyin’ o
Even the birdies and the beasties are sleepin’
But my bonny bairn is weepin’ weepin’
Dreams to sell, fine dreams to sell
Angus is here wi’ dreams to sell
Hush my wee bairnie an’ sleep without fear
Dream Angus has brought you a dream my dear
‘Dream Angus’
Traditional Scottish folk lullaby, 1850
home