Editing The Crow Road (section)

==Plot summary==
This [[Bildungsroman]] is set in the fictional [[Argyll]] town of Gallanach, the real village of [[Lochgair]], and in [[Glasgow]], where the adult Prentice McHoan lives. Prentice's uncle Rory disappeared eight years previously while writing a book called ''The Crow Road.'' Prentice becomes obsessed with papers his uncle left behind and sets out to solve the mystery. Along the way he must cope with estrangement from his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, and failure at his studies.

The estrangement from his father concerns Prentice's belief in a higher power and purpose, and in life after death, all of which his father denies.

A parallel plot is Prentice's gradual transition from an [[adolescent]] fixation on one young woman to a more mature love for another.

Prentice's efforts to make sense of Uncle Rory's fragmentary notes and the minimal clues surrounding his disappearance mirror his efforts to understand the world and his place in it. The narrative is nonlinear, leaping back and forth with little or no warning, requiring the reader to piece things together.