The Gowk Storm
Nancy Brysson Morrisson
Available as eBook
Introduced by Edwin Morgan
A ‘gowk storm’ is an untimely fall of snow in early Spring - a fitting symbol for the anguished story that unfolds. Nearly a hundred years ago, three girls were born to a minister and his wife in a remote Highland manse; the rigid patriarchal structure of the timesis set against their approaching womanhood and growing awareness of life beyond the safety of home.
After the disposal by marriage of the eldest, the sisters’ lives reach a new level of intensity. Emmy, the middle sister, finds to her horror that she is falling in love with her best friend’s fiancée. The unfortunate couple become estranged and a tragic outcome seems inevitable in the brooding symbolism of this disturbing story.
The Gowk Storm, published in 1933, was one of many award-winning books written by Nancy Brysson Morrison. It was a Book Society Choice, went into eight impressions and was successfully dramatised.
“Haunting, lyrical, passionate and a real page-turner, The Gowk Storm is definitely one of my favourite Scottish novels.”
Anne Donovan
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Nancy Brysson Morrisson
Nancy Brysson Morrison (1907-1986), was born in Glasgow and educated at the Park School in that city and at Harvington College in London. She came of a talented family who were known as ‘writing Morrisons’. Her brother Thomas and her sister Margaret both became well-known novelists like herself. A very private person who never married, she lived mainly in Glasgow, but also in London and Edinburgh. Edwin Muir and Compton Mackenzie praised the ‘poetic power’ of her prose. Her work was also much admired in America, and indeed her late novel Thea (1962) was first published in New York. The Gowk Storm (1933) was a Book Society Choice, and was successfully dramatised for radio.
An interest in biography resulted in books on a variety of historical and literary figures, from Henry VIII to Thomas and Jane Carlyle.
Her very readable novels, set partly in Glasgow and partly in the Highlands or on the fringe of the Highlands, include Breakers (1930); When the Wind Blows (1937); The Winnowing Years (1949), which won the first Frederick Niven Award; The Hidden Fairing (1951); and The Following Wind (1954).