Ian Macpherson is a Glasgow based Irish writer and stand-up comedian. On the 25th October last year the Glasgow (Byres Road) branch of a well- known bookshop saw the launch of a book by said Monsieur Macpherson. That book was entitled Sloot, an enticing title if ever there was one. So what did it mean? Well, Google was no help so curiosity made a purchase of said book a necessity.
What’s the story? Publishers Bluemoose’s précis is difficult to beat so here it is:
“A Post -postmodern crime novel set on the clean streets of Dublin’s leafiest suburb, SLOOT has at its heart an accidental detective who’d rather write his own Celtic-screwball-noir than solve the crime, and a narrator who loses the plot, literally.”
The strange and highly comic tale is delivered in Macpherson’s trademark style where he frequently steps out of the pages as narrator while the bizarre events unfold.
During the lockdown, Macpherson has launched a podcast entitled Hardly A Fit Subject For Levitywherehe reads extracts from the gloriously funny Sloot. Over the 13 minutes broadcast, you’ll be introduced to comedian and would be novelist Haydn McGlynn and his three tiny nonagenarian aunts, Dottie, Florrie and Dodie, who may or may not have ‘dementtia’, as they go about scattering his Uncle Eddie’s ashes deep in the ‘Dubling Mountings’.
Macpherson, who reflects the book’s self-referential style in his first extract, taking sideways dry swipes at PC language on the way, plans further weekly broadcasts over the next six weeks. Based on the success of the first series there could be more on the way, so lug in for some serious literary entertainment that could be introducing more of the wacky and singular characters who populate Sloot.
If that sounds like your kind of diversion, get yourself over to Soundcloud now!
As Macpherson revealed, according to one lockdown listenerHardly A Fit Subject For Levity is, ‘The perfect ambient soundscape while you hoover the ceiling.’
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 