Sally Magnusson’s third novel, Music in the Dark (2023), explores the Highland Clearances and their aftermath through the experiences of the women who tried to resist eviction in the township of Greenyards in Strathcarron in 1854. The action takes place over one night in July 1884, in a tenement room-and-kitchen in the town of Rutherglen near Glasgow but roams back over generations, as a displaced, working-class Highlandwoman bearing old injuries opens her mind to the man who came looking for lodgings.
Music in the Dark was described by The Scotsman as having “what Ford Madox Ford thought the mark of a great novel: the ability to make you think and feel at the same time; and you can’t or shouldn’t ask for more than that from a work of art.”
It was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize and shortlisted for the Winston Graham Prize.
“Truer to the reality of clearance and what came after than many ostensibly factual accounts of those events” — Dr James Hunter, author of Set Adrift Upon the World: The Sutherland Clearances
“Her best yet . . . Beautifully written and utterly absorbing, it is a fiction fashioned from fact” ― Sunday Post
“Part understated love story and part lament for a people and way of life brushed aside to make way for a more profitable commodity . . . this affecting novel attests to a heartfelt faith in the power of song to heal wounds and keep memories alive” ― The Herald
“There is nothing tentative about Sally Magnusson’s new novel; it is a fine piece of craftsmanship . . . This is a delightful and sympathetic novel, beautifully written” ― The Scotsman
“Magnusson tackles the dual timescale with perfect assurance in a beautifully written novel that makes you think and feel at the same time” ― The i Paper
“An engrossing, beautifully written novel about the Highland Clearances and the long-term physical, emotional and psychological damage done to those who were forced from their homes and homeland. Like all good historical fiction, it both illuminates the past and speaks eloquently to the present” — James Robertson, author of The Testament of Gideon Mack
“A wonderful and moving story, beautifully told . . . an episode of history brought vividly to life” — Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures
“I absolutely loved this book. An important and brutal historical event – but also a tender and unusual love story. It gave me writer envy” — Kirsty Logan, author of The Gracekeepers
“A beautifully written piece of work, achieved with immense skill. The portrayal of Jamesina Ross, as she is shattered and put back together by the light-touch constancy of Niall Munro, is perfectly balanced. The minute focus on these two individuals tells a huge story of the nineteenth century Highlands, Glasgow and North America that readers will find deeply affecting” — Shona MacLean, author of The Bookseller of Inverness
Sally Magnusson 