LIAM MCILVANNEY ON HIS LATEST NOVEL

The author tells how his worries about the locals' reactions turned to them asking who would play the pub landlord on TV, and why living in New Zealand means he escapes the literary shadow of dad William

- BY PAUL ENGLISH

WHEN crime writer Liam Mcllvanney came home to the Ayrshire coast to punt the bleakest novel of his career, he worried the people of Fairlie might run him out of town for darkening its name.

Instead, they queued up to have their copies signed and argue about who should play the landlord when it's made for TV.

McIlvanney said: "I was slightly trepidatious as to how the good people of Fairlie would react to their village being traduced in my novel.

"I did 22 dates on a book tour and there originally wasn't one in Fairlie. But we ended up doing one in the Village Inn. About 120 people came along and it was brilliant.

"There's that old Alistair Gray quote about Glasgow that until a city has been written about it doesn't properly exist.

"I'm not sure anyone has written anything about Fairlie apart from a few poems, so I think people were pleased that their wee village was in the book.

"And the craic in the Village Inn at the end was, 'Who gets to play Brian the pub landlord?'

By the time the women in the hairdressers and the couple at the bus stop had asked him to sign their copies, the Ayrshire scribe knew he'd got away with it.

Having launched his fifth novel, McIlvanney returned to New Zealand buoyed further by news that the story is to be adapted for TV by Glasgow-based Synchronicity Films, the makers of Mayflies and The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

He said: "I'm excited. They came to scout locations. I had billed Fairlie as this idyllic seaside town and they came in one of those July days with horizontal rain.