Editing Espedair Street

{{short description|1987 novel by Iain Banks}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name         = Espedair Street
| orig title   =
| translator   =
| image        = IainBanksEspedairStreet2.jpg
| caption      = First edition
| author       = [[Iain Banks]]
| cover_artist = Philip Mann, ACE design
| country      = Scotland
| language     = English
| series       = 
| genre        = 
| publisher    = [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]]
| release_date = 1987
| media_type   = Print ([[Hardcover|Hardback]] & [[Paperback]])
| pages        = 249 
| isbn         = 0-333-44916-9
| oclc= 16089335
| preceded_by  = 
| followed_by  = 
}}

'''''Espedair Street''''' is a [[Novel in Scotland|novel by Scottish]] writer [[Iain Banks]], published in 1987.

==Plot introduction==
The book tells the (fictional) story of the rise to fame of Dan Weir ('Weird'), a [[bass guitar]] player in a [[rock and roll]] band called Frozen Gold, and of his struggles to be happy now that he is rich and famous.

==Plot summary==

{{blockquote|Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond [[Iona]] (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with [[Staffa]]’s six-sided columns and [[Fingal's Cave]]; or I might head south to [[Gulf of Corryvreckan|Corryvreckan]], to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed.}}
{{blockquote|Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. just to try and explain.}}

Weird starts out in the Ferguslie Park area of [[Paisley, Renfrewshire|Paisley]] in a very underprivileged [[Catholic]] family. He is impressed by a group named '''Frozen Gold''' when he sees them live, in the Union of [[University of Paisley|Paisley College of Technology]], and auditions with them. Christine Brice likes his songs, and he joins the band. He ends up writing all their material and playing bass guitar (after trying unsuccessfully to get them to change their name), as the band rises in the [[Psychoactive drug|drug]]- and [[Alcoholic beverage|booze]]-fuelled rock and roll of the 1970s, assisted by [[A&R]] man Rick Tumber of ARC Records. In the '''Three Chimneys tour''', singer Davey Balfour takes Dan along on an attempt to break an unofficial (and illegal) speed record for flying around three power station chimneys in [[Kent]] in his private [[aeroplane]].

He reminisces about this from 1980s [[Glasgow]], where he lives as a recluse in a Victorian [[folly]] (St Jutes), ever since the tragic events which led to the demise of the band. He is posing as his own caretaker, and his friends McCann and Wee Tommy know him as Jimmy Hay. After a memorable fight in a nightclub called 'Monty's', his real identity is revealed. He has grown uncomfortable with fame and wealth, and eventually visits his first girlfriend, Jean Webb, now living in [[Arisaig]].

==Literary significance & criticism==
The band is loosely modelled on [[Pink Floyd]] or [[Fleetwood Mac]] although Banks has said that the character of Weird was in part inspired by [[Fish (singer)|Fish]], the ex-[[Marillion]] singer and lyricist ("When I created Weird [...] I think Fish was at the back of my mind as a wee subliminal influence").<ref>Iain Banks & Fish, "How We Met", ''[[The Independent]]'', 25 April 1999, retrieved 12 March 2012 [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/how-we-met-ian-banks--fish-1089637.html]</ref> There is a tone of [[rock journalism]] in the parts of the book about Frozen Gold.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}} Coincidentally, onetime aspiring rock musician Sandy Robertson, who later became a well known rock journalist at Sounds magazine, lived in Espedair Street in the early 70s before the book was written.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

As Banks' first novel to eschew 'special effects', not being [[gothic novel|Gothic]] [[horror fiction|horror]] like ''[[The Wasp Factory]]'', a literary [[mystery fiction|mystery]] like ''[[Walking on Glass]]'', or [[science fiction]] like ''[[The Bridge (Banks novel)|The Bridge]]'', most critics regard it as one of his most accessible works.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

'''Espedair Street''' is also a real street in [[Charleston, Paisley]], where some of the significant events in the book take place.

==Bibliography==
''Espedair Street'', Iain Banks, London: Macmillan, 1987, {{ISBN|0-333-44916-9}} (paperback {{ISBN|0-349-10214-7}})

==Adaptation==
A four-part BBC [[Espedair Street (radio)|radio adaptation]] of the novel was broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4]] in January 1998.

==References==
<references />

==External links==
*[http://textualities.net/writers/features-a-g/banksi01.php Textualities review]

{{Iain Banks}}

[[Category:1987 British novels]]
[[Category:Macmillan Publishers books]]
[[Category:Novels about music]]
[[Category:Novels by Iain Banks]]
[[Category:Novels set in Scotland]]
[[Category:Scottish novels]]