This is an engaging read for sure but not nearly as weird as I expected from the reviews, and perhaps best suited to those who enjoy anthologies and short stories. There is a central conceit which ties the whole thing together: that of the Luckenbooth building in Edinburgh in which nine inhabitants live, writing over each other's stories, like a palimpsest, across the years of the twentieth century. Structurally formal, this has three sections, each containing three characters whose lives are rendered in three alternating sections, and each section covers a trio of years in calendar order: so 1910s-1930s in the first set, 1940s-1960s in the second, and ending with 1970s-1990s.

Inevitably, as is frequently the case with short story collections, some will be more meaningful and interesting to individual readers than others. Personally, I liked the earliest set best (Jessie, Flora and Levi), found the 1963 sections featuring William Burroughs tiresome, and liked the 1970s-1990s parts least as they felt derivative of much contemporary Scottish fiction (the depredations of the Thatcher years, drug culture, HIV, the sex industry).

Fagan has imagination and the stories with surreal elements appealed most. But the writing can get overly stylised with short. fragmented. one-word. sentences. too often for my liking. There's are also places where the book becomes a soap-box: now, I suspect I share Fagan's politics pretty closely but long diatribes against the patriarchy, against racism, against humanity's plundering of the planet, even a dire warning at the end against pandemics all had me rolling my eyes and groaning. Not because it's not true but because it's preachy and doesn't say anything that we don't already know.

Far more appealing are the stories of Jessie, the self-styled Devil's daughter, beautiful Flora and the drag balls, and Black American Levi writing letters home to his brother on the 1939 eve of WW2.

Overall, then, this is thoughtful and lightly innovative. I liked the Angela Carter elements. And the trope of using a building to 'travel' through 20th century Edinburgh reminded me of The Underground Railroad where the literalised railway becomes a way to transport us through time and American geography. I was just expecting something slightly weirder and more fantastical than I got.

Jenni Fagan employs an effective structure here. She gives us snapshots of different types of lives led in one Edinburgh tenement block over the 20th century as it slides from seeming respectability down the social scale to seediness and dereliction - lives varying widely in terms of sexuality, social status, vulnerability - forming a commentary on the Edinburgh tourists do not see. Some episodes are shocking, some more sentimental, nearly all the characters affected to some extent by the experience of Jessie Macrae early in the century. The blend of gritty realism and supernatural elements works well. I was enthralled by the atmosphere she conjures of an Edinburgh romanticising its history as it touts for tourists but with a seamy underbelly hiding secrets in dark, dank alleys.

Superbly well written. One example that I think gives a flavour of the whole:

‘An Edinburgh summer is usually a skittery, lying, drunk, untrustworthy foe - her legs are always spread - elsewhere. She is elusive and unreliable, a total fucking pisshead. The next day (for months) she pretends she’s still far too poorly to make an appearance.
Locals loathe the erratic and often absent entirely Edinburgh summer.
Talk about her endlessly - will she, or won’t she?
Look out windows expectantly each morning.
They buy flower seeds just in case.
Resentfully, they keep out all items of their winter wardrobe.
She loves all the anticipation, doesn’t she?
They hate her.
It’s an entire country in an abusive relationship with the weather.
She drives many to despair, or drink.
However, if she does arrive!
All is forgiven.’

The choice of cover art is just perfect.

I was solidly absorbed by half of this book and solidly bewildered by the other. Like many other reviewers I felt throughly confused once Burroughs entered the mix, and though it was mildly interresting I really didn't get on with the imitation of his train of thought musings. I will say that Luckenbooth is unlike anything else I'll probably read this year, and some of the commentary was very apt right through the ages. Though it wasn't all my cup of tea I'm still happy with my ARC as the obvious love for Scotland was woven though every single page.

The Devil's daughter arrives at 10 Luckenbooth Close to bear a child for the owner, Mr Udnam. Jessie is truly her father's child and as her child grows, she becomes lover to Mr Udnam's fiancee until tragedy unfurls. 10 Luckenbooth Close is now haunted by these events which affect the subsequent residents.
This is a highly ambitious book which follows the effects of a 'haunted' tenement building on its residents over the years. Steeped in historic Edinburgh lore there is a love of the city weaving through it all. Some of the narrators were more successful than others, each has story to tell about life, love and changing times. I did feel there was little too much focus on same-sex relationships and the book is very explicit at times. However there is magical quality in certain places that transcends the negatives.

Luckenbooth is a book with a distinctive structure - three sections, each with a focus on three characters living at 10 Luckenbooth Close in Edinburgh, one per decade, revisited three times. Starting with the devils daughter and loosely linked from there.
Edinburgh, primarily the old town, is the consistent character throughout and is brought to vivid life - the streets, wynds and personality of the city shines through. The characters populating the house are varied, and each decade feels like a perfect snapshot of a point in time. Supernaturally influenced, sexy, violent and constantly surprising; Luckenbooth is a microcosm of the city.

“Edinburgh seduces with her ancient buildings. She pours alcohol or food down the throats of anyone passing, dangles her trinkets, leaves pockets bare. She’s a pickpocket. The best kind of thief, one you think of–most fondly.”

When two separate newspapers hail as novel as likely to be the weirdest of 2021, and do so in the early days of January, this reader’s attention is caught:

“”Nazi spies, a vampire and the devil's daughter – is Jenni Fagan's Luckenbooth the weirdest book of 2021? This gothic tale of a creepy Edinburgh tenement building's denizens is seedy, sexy and strange.”
Francesca Carrington, Telegraph

“Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan — a strong contender for the weirdest novel of 2021
A tenement building in Edinburgh is home to a bizarre medley of occupants, says Sarah Ditum, Times”.”

And Luckenbooth is certainly a very striking and unusual novel.

It tells the story of an Edinburgh tenement building, down a dark alley, Luckenbooth Clise just off the Royal Mile.

“No. 10 Luckenbooth Close is called that because of an old word lucken-buith, it’s what they called the first locked booths for trading, they used to drag carts to sell silver and other things but they’d have to cart them back and forth across the city and I tell you, brother, the hills in this city are no joke, if I wasn’t a God-fearing man I’d say they were designed by a psychopath. Anyway, eventually those local traders asked the council if they could lock their booths and that’s how the word came about. Also–a Luckenbooth is a piece of jewelry, worn either as a brooch or a ring that can be given to a fiancée–it is pretty–a silver heart, with two hands holding it.”

It does so by tracing the history of an eclectic selection of its denizens over the period 1910 to 1999, which include a phengophobic miner, terrified as the mines close and he may have to work above ground, a women training to become a SoE operative in World War II, a medium (who also exposes other, fraudulent, mediums), the author William Burroughs visiting the Book festival, some triad gangsters visiting from Asia, the real-life madam Dora Noyce, and the devil’s own daughter, typically those marginalised from a patriarchal society due to their social status or sexuality.

The book is carefully structured, as the author explained in an interview: “It got completely out of control at one point when I decided that the novel was going to be in three parts, and each part would have three decades, and each decade would be revisited three times. And each chapter would be 3,333 words long.” She was persuaded to relax the word constraint but the other structure remains, and indeed as the decades progress, the inhabitants who are the subject of each story live in ever higher floors of the building. (https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/ones-watch-2021-jenni-fagan-author-3083375)

So for example, the first third of the novel has the following chapter headings:

1910: Flat 1F1: Jessie MacRae (21): the arrival
1928: Flat 2F2: Flora (33): the drag ball
1939: Flat 3F3: Levi (31): the bone library
1910: Flat 1F1: Jessie MacRae (21): the second day
1928: Flat 2F2: Flora (33): After–everyone arrives
1939: Flat 3F3: Levi (32): the four horsemen of the apocalypse
1913: Flat 1F1: Jessie MacRae (24): the conclusion
1928: Flat 2F2: Flora (33): It’s not my cage
1939: Flat 3F3: Levi (32): fear fir the mermaid

“Everything arrives and departs at No. 10 Luckenbooth via the stairwell–news and gossip, fear, post, furniture arrives, or is taken out, lots of bags of coal. The stairwell steps are made of stone and they are worn with footsteps from decades of wear, so many people have lived out their lives here, children, old people, friends, lovers, unwanted relatives, a dog on a string, a doctor, an undertaker. How many bodies have been carried out over all that time? How many babies born? As the building gets higher the apartments get smaller. The residents less wealthy, I should be on the top floor, I’m only staying on the third because my employer leased it to me whilst his nephew is away. Further up the building they have four apartments on each landing. If you took off the entire front wall of No. 10 Luckenbooth Close you’d see the basement, stair, floor, room, light, ceilings and repeat for nine floors. None of us would be surprised by the others’ habits. The man on the fifth floor (as he is doing right now) plays his piano on a Sunday, his wife’s parrot is allowed to fly around their apartment, there would be different wallpapers, at least twenty-three beds, a few tin baths, fireplaces, rugs of assorted design–there is a prayer group meets on the sixth floor on a Wednesday, a card game is run from the landlord’s fancy apartment on the first floor, he is paler than bread–except for his nose which is red as claret. I walked home last week and found him carving a pictograph at the front door, it is a tiny goat girl, he was drunk and it’s his building!”

In practice, despite the different time periods, the stories do overlap, in part as characters are still resident, or spoken of, in late decades, and in part as the presence of some literally haunts the building, most notably Jessie MacRae.

“It is entirely possible to slip through the decades in between these floors. Travel forward or back in time. There is the voice of a woman. A girl child and an older sister maybe”

We first meet her - “My name is Jessie MacRae. I am the devil’s daughter.” - rowing from an island to the mainland in a coffin, after disposing of her father’s body. Her father had sold her to Mr Udnam, the owner of the building, and like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a character inspired by Deacon Brodie. Udnam wants Jessie to act as a surrogate mother for him and within a few pages he, his girlfriend and Jessie are engaged in a debauched threesome. Jessie immediately falls pregnant, and gives birth not within 9 months but rather 3 days, to a girl who, like her, has the stubs of horns on her head.

I can see that for some the switching between decades and the relatively short space (1/9th of the novel) allocated to each character could be a little frustrating when one gets particularly invested in a particular storyline, but it makes for a very strong narrative drive and the variety and inventiveness of the cast of characters is fascinating.

Fagan also brilliant creates the atmosphere of Edinburgh:

“Bill calls this his Rothschild suit. He is smoking. His spectacles are thin-rimmed. His shoes are worn at the heel and the leather is cracked. One hand rests in his pocket. It is a grey three-piece. A thin black tie; bright eyes; lined face; pointy chin; slim outline. Long fingers and a fedora. He is ashen as the city. Sea haar creeps along the streets until they disappear into its dense fog. Edinburgh is relentless in her gloom when she chooses, a city of endless night. In this mood, the ceaseless grey is enough to numb an optimist. Pea soup! It is hardly an inventive description. Those who describe Edinburgh’s vampiric soul as thus are not his kind. They are no starry angel-headed hipsters! Twin-souled city. All the darker for the light and to find himself back here in secret is thrilling. He just wanted to come back and hide for a few days.”

A truly memorable read - and yes perhaps this will prove to be the weirdest (in a good way) book of 2021. A strong 4+ stars.

I loved this book! I wasn’t sure at first but as I got into ‘Luckenbooth’ by Jenni Fagan I was hooked. A very unusual mix of historical, supernatural, and social themes. The novel was at times very shocking but this only added to its impact as almost a social commentary on the city of Edinburgh.

Number 10 Luckenbooth Close is a nine-storey tenement building in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Over ninety years we witness the changing times and the building’s slow decline told in snapshots through nine of its tenants. It’s a microcosm of society from upper-middle class to subculture to grim poverty.

The novel’s structure is ambitious and its large cast of characters lends itself to some interesting playing around with different styles. We get dark, magical realism with horror elements, a William Burroughs lecture and tarantinoesque slasher action but also more lyrical notes. It is a love letter to the great city of Edinburgh’s dark and sordid side.

I found it an absolutely fascinating and vibrant novel although there were some storylines that I liked better than others and it is certainly on the challenging side. It’s one of those books that you’ll want to read again and again because there is so much more to discover.

Luckenbooth begins in 1910 when Jessie MacRae sails to Edinburgh in the coffin her father made for her. She is The Devil’s Daughter and has been sold to a wealthy minister residing in No. 10 Luckenbooth Close to bear him and his fiancée a child. The consequences of this brings a curse upon the tenement building for the next century. This book is written in three parts with each following a set of residents who live on different floors in No.10 over the decades and how their lives are connected in some way to the building. The walls of No. 10 Luckenbooth Close have a secret to reveal and each of the residents throughout the years can feel this but only one will finally release the building from the horrors and cruelty it has kept hidden.

Right from the first line it is clear this is a very dark, atmospheric story. It brings together a diverse host of characters from all walks of life, and their story is told through the struggles they face in the particular era they are living through. The descriptions of Edinburgh and its immediate area are so vivid, I was able to become utterly absorbed in the book and it really brought this chilling tale to life. Jenni Fagan combines the supernatural with gothic storytelling and does so beautifully and I look forward to reading more of her work. There are many descriptive scenes of drug abuse and violence throughout which may not make for a comfortable read for everyone. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy for review.

Fagan's writing is as electric and inimitable as ever, Luckenbooth is a very dark & twisty Gothic fairytale as well as a portrait of Edinburgh & Edinburgh society over the decades.

By another writer, commissioned for January print issue of The Skinny:

"Luckenbooth is an ode to Edinburgh’s crumbling Old Town, but as ever with Fagan the supernatural underlies everything within its pages. It would be easy for a novel like this to feel disjointed, but the sense of place and the presence of something other throughout make the transitions of time and character effortless. No 10. Luckenbooth Close itself may be the novel’s beating heart, but something darkly mystical flows through its veins."

Full review: https://www.theskinny.co.uk/books/book-reviews/luckenbooth-by-jenni-fagan

Jessie Macrrae is the devil's daughter and the devil has sold her to a wealthy Edinburgh man to bear a child for him. She arrives in Leith in her coffin and when she is murdered by the man she curses the building he lives in, 10 Luckenbooth Close. The story then follows some of the inhabitants of this cursed place over the course of the 20th century. Some of their stories are compelling but others are not `and I confess to leafing quickly through a few pages especially those concerning William Burroughs. I'm not sure why he was in this book. Was it perhaps because he killed his common law wife and escaped justice by claiming it was an accident? This is referred to in the novel as a comparison to how woman can be treated if they kill someone. Or was it because of his interest in the occult? I don't know.

Parts of the novel I liked very much. The story of the medium, Agnes Campbell was moving and I would have liked more about her and less about Burroughs. Other parts of the novel I didn't like. I found the violence abhorrent and difficult to read. Overall a 2.5 to 3 star read for me. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

'Edinburgh seduces with her ancient buildings. She pours alcohol or food down the throats of anyone passing, dangles her trinkets, leaves pockets bare. She's a pickpocket. The best kind of thief, one you think of - most fondly.'

I love Jenni Fagan. I loved the Sunlight Pilgrims. I loved Luckenbooth.

Told through multiple narrative viewpoints, Luckenbooth is both snapshots of Edinburgh and a weaving of the layers of history that make place special. In doing so, Fagan captures the unique semi-claustrophobia of Edinburgh with the feeling that it's ghosts are always just out of eye sight. No 10 Luckenbooth Close and her residents are haunting, nostalgic and will never let you go.

With some split perspective novels, it's easy to tire or have favourites. However, Fagan's characters are so fresh, interesting, and well researched for their historic period. They are so well developed and it was a joy to see little hints of them throughout. I wish there was more from a few voices in particular as it felt at times like the format cut their story to too quick a resolution.

This book is quite political as well, in the best possible ways. As someone living in Edinburgh I fully admired the character's range of emotions towards Edinburgh and the council that runs the city. I felt their anger towards the council for turning away from supporting the residents of the city and instead spending funds toward making the city as much of a tourist trap as possible. It's unendingly aggravating as a resident. But there is such love for Edinburgh as it is undeniably a gorgeous place. Fagan makes this point through her choice of historic time frames, nodding to the gentrification of Leith as well as with the ultimate ending of the book. Also, Fagan is no stranger to diversity, which is really refreshing. There are trans characters and queer characters without pomp or ceremony. There are characters with mental illnesses and those struggling to just get by. She lets them have the space to live in the book, respectfully and ultimately in peace.

All in all, this is a beautiful and important book about Edinburgh, her people and the toppling of the patriarchy. I will be recommending it to everyone I know.

My goodness, this is a wild swoop of a novel! Like a tapestry, this book weaves together the stories of the inhabitants of a 9 storey tenement in the old town of Edinburgh from the early 1900s onwards. There is sex, power, the supernatural and tales of ordinary and not so ordinary people.
Jenni Fagen knows Edinburgh well and reveals to us the dark, beating heart of the city which casual tourists don’t see.
There are some novels which sear themselves into the consciousness of a generation - in my opinion, this is one of them. Don’t miss it!

'Luckenbooth' by Jenni Fagan is set in a towering Glasgow tenement. Across different times in the 20th century, its many floors are populated by an ensemble cast of fantastical and very real characters, but several themes, and storylines bring them all together.

It would be an understatement to say I loved this book. It is brilliant. It completely drew me in and I was very sad when it came to an end. There are parts that are quite risque, making it a novel I would carefully recommend, but the mixture of supernatural/fantasy, current day politics, philosophical questions and strong geographical location worked brilliantly. At times it reminded me very strongly of Ali Smith, but at the same time Fagen clearly has her own style and sense of direction. I hope this novel gets all the praise it deserves.

I loved the premise of this book - the story of a building in Edinburgh and its inhabitants over a span of 80 years. It's a building of nine floors, and we learn about the tenant of an apartment on each floor between the 1900s and Millennium eve. The book was quite short - 250 pages - which seems a bonus to me at the moment, as I just can't' seem to get into long books again just yet. The shorter the better.

Did I like the book? No, not really. It was very preachy in parts - with one of the tenant's stories (William S Burroughs the author, though liberties I think were taken!) I skipped entire pages, I found his speeches very laborious. The very first story of the novel I wasn't sure whether to take literally or not - a young girl sails over the ocean in a coffin made by her father, but the girl is a daughter of the devil. She even has sharp horns which she keeps hidden under her bonnet. Shall I take that as real, or is that a metaphor? I'm a very black and white person, and I need to know where I stand straightaway with books, but this had me puzzled from the get go. Anyway, the 'evil' spirit of this young girl and her relationship with the landlord and his wife, pervades the building over the next 80 years and all who reside in it. It is not a happy book, everyone's story is tragic in one way or another. The only characters I really liked were the psychic medium lady and her husband. The others not so much. I wanted to like this book, but it wasn't for me.

This is strange, beautifully crafted, extraordinary and gothic storytelling, in the tradition of the horror that underlies the darkest of fairytales flavoured with the supernatural, from author and poet Jenni Fagan. Split into 3 parts, set in Edinburgh, we follow various characters through a time period of almost a century, getting glimpses of lives and events that occur at the eerie and dangerous 10 Luckenbooth Close. Luckenbooth is a piece of jewellery, a witch's brooch or ring given to a fiancee, with a silver heart, with two hands holding it, reputed to protect the wearer from the evil eye. The 9 storey blood soaked tenement building is imbued with a heavy, inescapable sense of menace and dread, indeed, when Jessie McRae arrives, she is warned not to enter. Having killed her father, Jessie has rowed the waters in her coffin to Edinburgh, claiming to be the devil's daughter, with horns growing out of her head.

Ostensibly to serve as a maid to the owner of the building, Mr Udnam, engaged to Elise, in reality Jessie was sold by her father to provide them with a child. A child that comes into being rather sooner than might be expected, with Jessie naming her Hope, a daughter she cannot let go of as she and Elise become lovers. As tragedy ensues and curses issue forth, the repercussions are to echo throughout the 20th century and connect with the lives of those who inhabit the building in the differing apartments. As blood flows and horror builds, in 1928 Flora attends a drag ball where all manner of sexual acts take place, drugs and drink flow, at the home of a married ex-lover that betrayed her. Blind in one eye, the gifted spiritualist and high priestess Agnes with an ouija board, holds a seance that is to test her to her limits. As the stories of others in the building are revealed, we learn that the indomitable spirits of women cannot be controlled, limited, abused, or walled in without consequences.

This novel drips with lyricism and atmosphere, a building that in so many ways mirrors the darkness, criminality and injustices of Edinburgh itself. 10 Luckenbooth Close is home to death, the sounds of cloven hoofs, witches, demons, mermaids constructed of bones, madness, chaos, skeletons, ghosts, deathwatch beetles, and the devil himself perhaps, but if so the devil is in the world, having grown stronger through the virus of language and words as William Burroughs, a man who killed his wife but whose wealth kept him safe, claims to his lover, John. This is not going to be a book for everyone, but I found it poetic, spellbinding and enthralling, a gripping read that I recommend to those who seek tales of the darkest side of life. Many thanks to Random House Cornerstone.

Too much murder most horrid, sex (sometimes violent) drugs, angels + demons

I struggled with this one, becoming increasingly deadened, numbed and, yes…BORED by the unvarying ‘dark edgy Gothic’ This was another book where I found myself muttering less would be so much MORE

Fagan has wonderful imagination, verve and energy, not to mention originality in her voice, but sorely missing is light and shade. I was interested to request this because she is a poet, and generally one of the strengths of poetry is that it imposes discipline on a writer, as each word, phrase, image should serve worlds and be weighted with meaning.

The ideas behind this are interesting, taking an Edinburgh tenement, permeated with a dark history, and skipping across the twentieth century, decade by decade, a tenant to a floor. There’s a melding, always of the supernatural, reaching out generally dark graspings across each tenant’s life and history.

But, in the end, too much of one note. Be warned, most depictions of heterosexual sex are non-consensual and brutal, and almost all gay and lesbian encounters the only ones which are exemplary and concensual.

This one is most definitely NOT a read for anyone who shies away from graphic descriptions of blood spatter and savagery. To me, there was more than a whiff of the gratuitous afoot. It felt a little like a book version of a snuff movie, reading it.

The alluring, soulful cover did not predict the reality of this book, for me

Jenni Fagan knows Edinburgh well and her writing evokes the city as a dark and dangerous place where residents are being priced out of their homes to create a tourist trap for the wealthy. Her novel focuses on the life and lives of no 10 Luckenbooth Place over the course of the 20th century. This is a 9 storey building in Edinburgh's Old Town and the reader is met with 9 stories of its residents told in a triptych form. Most of these stories are rather dark with the flats of Luckenbooth seeing far more cruelty and death than any building should. The stories mostly link and connect over the century with frequent spirit sights and sounds. I enjoyed parts of this book and thought the characters and their stories well crafted with highly visual descriptions of the residents, the building and its wider environment. The tantalising views of the sparkling River Forth and the dreich Scottish weather are particularly evocative.. I really was not clear why Fagan decided to make the writer William Burroughs one of the characters in her book as the rest of the characters, as far as I am aware, are entirely fictional. The story of Burroughs and his lover was not only, for me, the weakest part of the book, but its labouring ponderings on the meaning of language, detracted from the rest of the novel. Overall I certainly appreciated the writing in this book but I found it rather laborious to read.
My thanks to the publisher for a complimentary ARC of this book via Net Galley in return for an unbiased review.

I think this book will probably divide opinion. It was billed as a remarkable read and that is why I requested it - but I struggled with it. I did finish it because I was curious to find out how it would all come together, but, although I found some sections quite readable, there were others that I felt I had to plough through and, all in all, I didn't really 'get' this book..