Young Chris Guthrie lives a brutal life in the harsh landscape of northern Scotl
and, torn between her passion for the land, duty to her family and her love of b
ooks. When her mother, broken by repeated childbirths, takes her own life and po
isons her two youngest children, Chris is left with her father to run the farm o
n her own. Soon, she is alone, and for the first time can choose how to spend he
r life.
But, as the First World War begins, everything changes, and the young
men leave Scotland for battle. The first in Gibbon's classic trilogy, "A Scot's
Quair, Sunset Song" is infused with local vernacular, and innovatively blends S
cots and English in an intense description of Scottish life in the early twentie
th century.
