The Quarry

Iain Banks's last novel is a book of echoes. The story is a familiar one to anyone who has read Banks before: a group of old friends gather one more time after years apart; there's a guilty secret and a mystery which must be uncovered; there's a loner protagonist who....well you get the picture. Its a familiar story but there's one twist...one of the characters is dying from cancer, the disease that killed Banks.

But this is no maudlin tale of loss. Banks started this book before he was diagnosed, so it can't necessarily be seen as a response to his cancer. But he did rewrite parts once he had been diagnosed, so you get some idea of the pain and rage he felt as it spews from the mouth of the dying man in this book.

As I said there are echoes here of earlier novels, The Wasp Factory, Garbadale, Stonemouth, even Whit. Kit is a teenager with Aspergers who doesn't know who his mother is. Guy, his father, is dying of cancer and they live in an old tumbledown house at the edge of a quarry. Into this come old friends, from Guy's time on a film making course back in the 90's. Together for one last time to say goodbyes. But there's a tape....what's on it and how that affects everyone's motives is the main thrust of the book, along with Kit's attempts to deal with his father's illness and to just “fit in”, which he does with help from one of the friends, Holly.

It's not a hard read. It's superbly written as always and Banks takes potshots at his usual targets: the Tory government; materialism; the lack of purpose in the current generation....but it never holds up the story.

For me it's not quite up there with Espedair Street, Complicity or even Stonemouth. But its a good book and its a crying shame that we have been robbed of any more.

2.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Kit, a teenager on the Asperger's spectrum, hangs out with his dying father's old university friends, who have come for a final get together, and to find a mysterious, potentially damaging videotape.

Review
I think I've read all the Ian M. Banks SFF novels, but I've got a pile of mainstream Iain Banks still to read. Much as I've enjoyed Banks' writing, I've had mixed feelings about the straight novels I tried, such as Walking on Glass, despite its SFF elements. This story, much later written, and much more straightforward is less interesting but more successful.

The Quarry is really less of a novel than a novel-length character study. It focuses on Kit, an Asperger-spectrum teenager whose dying father is hosting a final get-together of university drama school friends, one of whom may be Kit's mother. Kit's Asperger's is handled with reasonable delicacy, and more through implication than direct reference. Kit himself is a strong character, and there's a broadly interesting crew of supporting actors. Kit's father, Guy, gets comparatively short shrift, and we never really get to know him very well – an odd omission, since there's some resonance between his situation and Banks' own illness. That's a weakness, since much of the plot circles around him, his motivations, and an old videotape that he may have.

As a character study, the book is interesting and effective, but runs long. As a novel, it's slow and somewhat plodding, and also runs long. More important, it never really develops past its beginning. Kit continues interesting, and we're still engaged by his situation and observations. But the ending doesn't really resolve anything, and while there's something of a transition, the book stops more than it ends. Nothing important is solved, and the wrapup finds Kit in a new holding pattern not greatly different than the last. Banks also struggles to turn the ever-present quarry behind the house into a lasting metaphor. For me, it mostly felt like an idea he'd forgotten about for most of the book, and rushed to tie in at the close.

I found Walking on Glass to be the work of a journeyman – a talented writer but weak storyteller – and this was in some ways the same: very assured technique and characters, but without very much to say when all is said and done. It's a pleasant, easy read, but likely to leave little lasting impact. Read his other books to remember Banks.