STONEMOUTH was published in 2012
Stonemouth was adapted for television by the BBC in 2015. Directed by Charles Martin, it starred Peter Mullan, Ncuti Gatwa, Sharon Small, Christian Cooke, Charlotte Spencer and Gary Lewis.
Stonemouth is home to Stewart Gilmour.
Or at least it used to be, until an incident with the town’s biggest crime family forced him into exile. Now his presence is required at the funeral of patriarch Joe Murston, and even though the last time Stu saw the Murstons he was running for his life, staying away might be even more dangerous than turning up.
An estuary town north of Aberdeen, Stonemouth, with its five-mile beach, can be beautiful on a sunny day. On a bleak one it seems to offer little more than seafog, gangsters, cheap drugs and a suspension bridge irresistible to suicides. There’s supposed to be a truce, but it’s soon clear that only Stewart is taking this promise of peace seriously. A drop into the cold grey Stoun begins to look like the soft option. As he steps back into the minefield of his past to confront his guilt, and all that it has cost him, Stu’s homecoming takes a more lethal turn than even he had anticipated.
Asked about the location of Stonemouth, Iain said, “Stonemouth is Montrose, except Aberdeen has been moved to where Dundee is. And there’s a suspension bridge. There’s a house there which is actually in Greenock. And there’s a beach which is really that place in Fife, with the forest, what’s it called? Tentsmuir Forest! That’s the blighter! I can see what it looks like. I think you have to see it in your head. You have to fool yourself into thinking that it does actually exist, and then write as though it does. Writing is self-deception!”