Divided personality is at heart of Craig’s shortlisted new book
The split personality is the inspiration behind Stirling writer Craig Russell’s new novel ‘Hyde’.
Shortlisted for this year’s Bloody Scotland McIlvanney Prize, the book returns to Robert Louis Stevenson’s popular Gothic classic, this time in Victorian Edinburgh.
Craig thoroughly enjoyed writing the tale which, he said, has parallels with the Scottish character and politics.
He commented: “As a Scot, I am fascinated by Caledonian antisyzygy — the uniquely Scottish ability to hold two completely contradictory beliefs or concepts in our minds at the same time without any cognitive dissonance.
“That is, of course, what was given perfect expression in ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
“Although Stevenson’s novella is set in London, I have always contended it is a very Scottish novel.
“The divided personality of the Jekyll/ Hyde reflects the divided personality that I know Stevenson saw in the Scots. When I wrote Hyde, I wanted to revisit that.
Franz Kafka, Günter Grass, Guy de Maupassant, Daphne Du Maurier, Arthur Conan Doyle, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allan Poe, and Raymond Chandler.
Craig started off as a freelance writer before becoming a novelist. He describes writing as an urge and loves the thrill as a new story idea emerges.
He said: “I have always, for as long as I can remember, had the compulsion to write.
“It’s an inseparable part of who I am. You’re always most excited about the next novel because it is a fresh, not yet fully formed idea.
“As for the themes and storylines I write, I would have to say that history, folklore, ethnography all play a part.
I am interested in people - as all writers have to be and I like to explore the historical and cultural backgrounds of my characters, my locations, my period settings Craig Russell