Annals of the parish, or

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The book is narrated by the Reverend Micah Balwhidder, a Presbyterian minister in the Ayrshire town of Dalmailing, and covers the years 1760 to 1810, the period of Robert Burns and the Industrial Revolution, when the economic and moral shape of Scottish life was changing in ways both explicit and invisible. The novel charts all this: the work of smugglers at Troon, new births in the parish, old deaths, the efforts of the press-gangs, the rise of the local economy, the business of {u2018}cadgers by day and excisemen by night{u2019}, the opening of a new dance school at Irville, {u2018}run by Mr Macskipnish{u2019}, visits to Glasgow and Edinburgh, the day of the country fair, described with a rare vernacular beauty. It{u2019}s a precursor to Dickens in terms of detail and to Flaubert in terms of style. --www.list.co.uk.