DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
The Scottish author Val McDermid is best known for her crime writing, a world of brutal murders and dark alleyways. But contrast that with her latest book, where, among other things, she meditates on the nature of soup. I believe the world is divided in two, she writes, those who think soup is a meal and those who are wrong. "Winter: The Story Of A Season" is her ode to memories of winters past and a heartfelt appreciation of all the season has to offer.
VAL MCDERMID: I like the contrast with being out in the outside, where it's crisp and cold and when you come indoors and it's all warm and lovely, and you can sit down with a good book and a good fire or a wee glass of whiskey. What's not to like about that?
ESTRIN: Well, I must confess I am a winter grinch. Did you write this book for people like me?
MCDERMID: Well, I'm kind of hoping it charms you into winter as well. One of the great things I think about winter is it's full of interesting festivals. It's a way that everybody has something to celebrate, can do it during winter.
ESTRIN: You could have called this book Writing because it feels like also a guide to writing.
MCDERMID: (Reading) The room where I do most of my work has two windows, both with vistas of trees. On one side, mature beeches and silver birches. In winter, the first frost produced the crunching underfoot of the pericarps left behind after the acorns have been plundered by squirrels, a percussive counterpoint to the susurration of the fallen leaves. Seen from my desk, the branches and twigs form a kind of road map. Tracing their paths is the perfect mindless activity when I need to let the wheels turn so the next piece of prose can form in my head. Winter makes it easy to follow strange tracks in my mind.
ESTRIN: You're a crime writer. Do those long winter nights get you in the mood for murder?
MCDERMID: I think they do. You know, just even sitting at my desk, looking out the window, there's not much movement because it's a nature reserve across the road from me, and there's no lights in the nature reserve. So sometimes, you know, there's shadowy figures walking through the nature reserve. And sometimes they have dogs, and sometimes they don't have dogs. And they make me wonder, if you don't have a dog, what are you doing wondering about a cold, lonely nature reserve in the middle of the night? When you know a place quite well, you see something peculiar one day. You think, what is that pile of leaves doing there? That wasn't here the last time I came through. Should I investigate? No. I think I'll just go home now.
ESTRIN: (Laughter) The imagination runs wild.
MCDERMID: Well, traditionally, in the detective novel, of course, it's always someone out walking the dog who comes across the body - one of the reasons why I don't have a dog.
ESTRIN: This book is a celebration of winter, but winter isn't all coziness and creative inspiration for everyone, is it?
MCDERMID: No, it's not. I'm very aware of that. But it was brought to my attention, I suppose, when I was an undergraduate at Oxford. One of my friends mentioned after dinner one night, when we were all sit around having cups of coffee, she'd heard about a charity called the Cyrenians, who had a barge on the Oxford Canal where homeless people could go for a hot drink or some soup and just some shelter. And it seemed to me to strike a note with some of the folk songs that I learned in my earlier youth, songs like "Streets Of London" and Alan Hull's "Winter Song." And I went around and volunteered, talking to homeless people, making them cups of tea, listening to their stories and realizing that not everybody had, if you like, a bed to sleep in or a place to go where they could call home. It makes me angry, and it makes me sad that we're so busy enjoying our lives that we don't think about the people who are condemned to living on the streets.
ESTRIN: Yeah. And you write about that beautifully in the book.
MCDERMID: Thank you.
ESTRIN: You do write a lot about Scottish winter traditions in this book.
MCDERMID: Yeah.
ESTRIN: What's your favorite?
MCDERMID: Oh, that's a difficult one. I think my favorite is probably Hogmanay. For me, it's a mixture of memory, I suppose. It's sentimental memory of New Year's as I was growing up, where the family would come together, and every member of the family who was in the room would have a party piece, so a song or a poem or some story to tell. And now we spent a lot of our time in wee village on the East Neuk of Fife, which is about an hour's drive from Edinburgh. And by midnight on New Year's, we all go down to the harbor, and we have fireworks at the harbor. And everybody hugs and kisses, wishing each other Happy New Year's. It's very sociable. Sometimes somebody has a wee party afterwards, or sometimes a few of us go back to one house or another house. It's a time for friendship and companionship and a reminder of what pulls communities together, I suppose.
ESTRIN: We've just celebrated New Year's. A lot of us sang "Auld Lang Syne" by Robert Burns, widely regarded as Scotland's national bard. And his birthday is celebrated later this month. How will you...
MCDERMID: Yes.
ESTRIN: ...Be marking that occasion?
MCDERMID: Well, I'll be at a Burns supper.
ESTRIN: A Burns supper, yeah.
MCDERMID: A Burns supper, which consists usually of a bowl of soup, cock-a-leekie soup, and then goes on to the main course, which is haggis, neeps - that's turnips - and mashed potatoes, tatties. And this is served up usually with a whiskey gravy. And you have your lovely, lovely, lovely Burns supper meal. And then commences the main part of the evening, which is the speeches and the songs. There are certain set speeches, and the main one of which is the Toast To The Immortal Memory Of Robby Burns. These speeches are interspersed with songs and recitations of Burns' poems and songs. Invariably, someone does "Tam O' Shanter," which is a wonderful, wonderful reading if it's done well. There's a climactic moment in the poem where Tam o' Shanter calls out, well done, cutty-sark. And nobody Scottish has the faintest idea what that means.
ESTRIN: (Laughter) What does it mean?
MCDERMID: It means well done, Lassie in the short, petticoat.
ESTRIN: (Laughter) Care to treat us to a Robert Burns poem you particularly love?
MCDERMID: Oh. Well, if I'm singing at a Burns supper, I'll sing "Green Grow The Rashes, O." It's just (singing) there's naught but care on ev'ry han', in ev'ry hour that passes, oh. What signifies the life o' man, an' 'twere na for the lasses, oh. Green grow the rashes, oh. Green grow the rashes, oh.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GREEN GROW THE RASHES")
DOUGIE MACLEAN: (Singing) Green grow the rashes, oh. The sweetest hours that e'er I spend, were spent among the lasses, oh.
MCDERMID: Some of the songs that the Burns club guys, who've been doing this for years because they love it. Some of the songs they sing will be less familiar to people. There's (singing) cauld kail in Aberdeen and castocks in Strathbogie. When ilka lad maun hae his lass, then fye, gie me my coggie.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THERE'S CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) Then fye, gie me my coggie. My coggie, Sirs, my coggie, Sirs. I cannot want my coggie. I wadna gie my three-girr'd cap, for e'er a quean on Bogie.
MCDERMID: It's like listening to things in a foreign language, I suppose, for a lot of people.
ESTRIN: That's true.
MCDERMID: But the rhythms are good, and the tunes are good. It's hard not to be drawn into it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THERE'S CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) That scrimps him o' his coggie. If she were mine, upon my life, I wad douk her in a bogie.
ESTRIN: Val McDermid, author of "Winter: The Story Of A Season." It's been a pleasure speaking with you.
MCDERMID: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, ""THERE'S CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN"")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) Sirs, my coggie, Sirs. I cannot want my coggie. I wadna gie my three-girr'd cap, for e'er a quean on bogie. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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