Blog tour: The Ossians by Doug Johnstone

This post is part of a blog tour organised by Random Things Blog Tours. I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

‘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 head off on a two-week winter tour across the cities and hinterlands of Scotland – 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.’

In The Ossians, Doug Johnstone’s second novel, we follow the eponymous band – frontman Connor, his sister Kate, girlfriend Hannah, best friend Danny, and their manager Paul – on a whirlwind pre-Christmas tour of deepest, darkest Scotland.

Unbeknown to the rest of the band, Connor has been tasked with delivering some packages along the way, on behalf of a nasty drug dealer he owes a lot of money. The stress of this prompts him to partake in even more drink and drugs than usual, leading him to think and behave in ways that gradually isolate him from the rest of the band – who are also overdoing it (albeit to a lesser extent) and have developments of their own to handle.

Will The Ossians make it to the final night of their tour – a make-or-break Glasgow show with a record company bigwig in attendance? Will Connor complete his assignment to the dealer’s satisfaction? And just who is the teenage boy Connor keeps spotting everywhere, who looks like a younger version of himself?

I really enjoyed The Ossians! Originally published in 2008, it may be one of the author’s less crime-flavoured books, but I was hooked all the same, continually wanting to see where Connor’s bad decisions would take him next. That, and I do love stories that allow me to live vicariously through arty types, even ones who aren’t having a particularly good time of it.

Connor is a hot mess, a pretentious so-and-so, and his own worst enemy – yet just about endearing enough that I felt compelled to stick with him, hoping he’d come out the other side reasonably okay. It helps that he’s fully aware he talks a load of rubbish at times, owns it when he gets thumped yet again because he simply can’t keep his mouth shut, and genuinely loves and cares for the people around him.

A key theme of The Ossians’ songs is the authentic heritage of Scotland (as opposed to how it’s packaged for tourists and certain films/TV shows), and what it means to be Scottish. However, Connor becomes more and more disillusioned about these ideas as the tour goes on and he realises that a) he’s only previously seen a small part of the country, and b) parts of Scotland are so different from one another in terms of geography and population, it’s difficult to argue in favour of a national character, or anything all people who call Scotland “home” have in common.

This multiplicity of places The Ossians visit gives rise to many entertaining (and occasionally, shocking) scenes. They encounter all sorts of people who interact with them in many different ways, often leading to dark laughs. Even so, there’s a thread of crisis running throughout, as Connor is really not well, and one night, Hannah has a fit on stage, yet insists on completing the tour.

Something else that piqued my interest about The Ossians (and Johnstone’s first novel Tombstoning) is how well it captures a particular time, while it was still happening. For the characters in both books – in their 20s and 30s respectively – alcohol is an integral part of socialising and relaxing in a way it isn’t for people of that age now. I was in my first year of university at around the time The Ossians is set, and there was a massive drinking culture you don’t really get any more (the kids are alright, though they’re also poorer and have 3x the debts).

It was also, as The Ossians additionally reflects, a particularly rubbish time to be a woman, with the whole “indie sleaze” thing, rampant casual sexism, and the expectation that women coolly brush off men’s lewd remarks and behaviour, rather than call them out on it and risk being seen as a humourless, up-themself bra-burner.

The Ossians is an absorbing and darkly entertaining road trip story.