The Sinner

O tempora! O City of failed writers and successful folksingers - Great Whore of Babble-on, if only Mad John Knox could see you now! Wild, experimental and nihilistic, The Sinner was published just months after the death of its author, Stuart MacGregor who was killed in a motor accident in Jamaica in 1973. Denis Sellars, the self-serving narrator is a restless, suicidal folksinger and would-be novelist. The City of Edinburgh is his love his enemies are the forces of progress which seek to make commercial the art and music of Scotland. Rob Sellars, his twin, is a successful folk artiste and has succeeded where Denis has failed; but with the might of right on his side, Denis decides between favour wider success as an artist and the raging dark side of himself. Strikingly personal and unflinching in its portrayal of a man dealing head on with the brutal impulses of the id, The Sinner is the story of a man dedicated to defending grassroots music and literature, even if it comes to violence. Combining amazing moments of passion with a suicidal and godless fervour The Sinner is a novel of despair, forever coming to terms with itself, and capturing the literary and folk scene of Edinburgh, circa. 1970, like no other work.