Benbecula

Summary

Booker-nominated Graeme Macrae Burnet returns to the historic Scotland of His Bloody Project to tell the multi-layered story of madness and murder in the MacPhee family.

Summer 1857. Angus MacPhee returns from a fortnight’s work as a servant at a house a few miles away. He seems to have lost his mind. His family are forced to keep him shackled to his bed. When he appears to have come to his senses he is allowed to go at large, but his erratic behaviour gives rise to suggestions that he should be confined in an asylum. Neither the family nor the local community are able to meet the required costs.

Liniclate, 1862. Malcolm MacPhee is living alone in the house where his brother’s madness led to horrifying ends. His only contact with the outside world are a neighbour and the local priest. Isolated, ostracised by the small community, Malcolm is haunted by visions of his family’s fate. Is he afflicted by the same madness? Worse, there are questions about his sister, Marion. Malcolm says she left long ago with their brother John, but no one saw her board the ship from Lochmaddy. Has something more sinister occurred? 

In Benbecula, Booker-nominated author Graeme Macrae Burnet returns to the historic Scotland of His Bloody Project to tell, for the first time, the story of the MacPhee family. Drawing on letters, asylum records, postmortem reports, and witness statements, Burnet constructs a beguilingly layered narrative about madness, murder, and the uncertain nature of the self.