Morvern Callar has lived for the whole of her 21 years so far in the Port, a depressed tourist trap somewhere on the west coast of Scotland, where the mountains meet the sea. She left school early, at the age of 15, to take up a job on the fruit-and-vegetable counter of the local superstore. A year later she met her boyfriend, 13 years her senior, the wealthy son of a nearby hotel-keeper, recently come home after years of travelling 'in countries'. So Morvern moved out of her fosterdad's flat in the Complex, losing the friendship of her old gang as she did so. These days, she sometimes goes out with Lanna from the bakery counter while her boyfriend stays at home, busy on his computer, working on the model-railway version of his birthplace he keeps hidden in the loft.

LRB 2 November 1995 | PDF Download