Fray: The haunting and mysterious new literary suspense novel of 2023, for fans of bestsellers THE LONEY and PINE

Product Information

Aye Write will also look ahead to exciting debut talent in its ‘Ones To Watch’ events. These will shine the spotlight on writers including Ryan Love, Lynsey May, Denise Saul, Mark Pajak, Chris Carse Wilson, and Wiz Wharton. Chris Carse Wilson running in Glen Coe Frame Focus Capture Photography And for you, it gives you that crucial space?

Aye Write is produced by Glasgow Life, the charity which delivers culture and sport to enhance mental, physical and economic wellbeing, and is funded by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland. Their world contracts to the cottage and its surrounding mountains, glens and forests, and in Wilson’s hands the isolation is palpable and unremitting. It’s ironic that one can feel such claustrophobia in a novel dominated by the perilous grandeur of the great outdoors; but there are no secondary characters to break the spell, no respite from these compulsive trains of thought. Soon the protagonist is showing signs of mental exhaustion, tormented by their failings: their goal-orientated life, fear of failure, the unsought advice that has driven people away and soured relationships. Chris Carse Wilson began writing Fray in 2016 and kept it secret from everyone including his wife Elaine, 42, until it was finished.

Nameless narrator

This is an exciting, intense book which explores the redemptive power of nature and the universal challenges we all face living with our own mental health. If that wasn’t exciting enough, we’ve also a series of excellent Aye Write Pop Up Events planned. In the run-up to the festival, on 25 April, we’ve Elizabeth Day lined up and in the coming months our Pop Up Events will feature names including former Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton, Ambrose Parry, Rob Rinder and Michael Palin. Fray is a totally original novel and I loved it for that… A dangerous journey that throws up lots of surprises. The writing is awe-inspiring.’ - Alex Pine, bestselling author of the DI James Walker series

Dark and atmospheric, Fray is chilling and very original. I couldn't put it down.' - Simon McCleave An unnamed narrator arrives at an isolated cottage in a remote part of the Scottish Highlands, tracing the last known movements of his father, not long after the death of his mother.

Inspiration

The narrator is driven to their wit’s end trying to puzzle all this out. Along the way, they talk about the darkness that has clouded their life at times, and the ways they’ve tried to cope. Running is one thing that helped, a way to keep moving, to hang on: Carse Wilson is a passionate advocate for mental health awareness who was diagnosed as autistic as an adult. He wrote Fray over several years in 15-minute bursts on the bus to and from work. Glasgow Life Chair, Bailie Annette Christie, said: “Aye Write is always a much-anticipated highlight in the city’s cultural calendar. This year’s festival will bring together a wonderful array of home-grown and international writing talent for a series of dynamic discussions and activities, so audiences from Glasgow and further afield can look forward to a superb celebration of writing and books and a really memorable event.”

Apparently written in 20-minute bursts on the bus to his job as Communications Manager of V&A Dundee, and hidden from his wife until it was completed, Chris Carse Wilson’s debut novel is an intense study of grief and obsession, following two people who try to come to terms with bereavement by pushing themselves mentally and physically to their limits. Fray begins with its anonymous narrator arriving at a cottage in the Scottish Highlands. The narrator’s mother died some time ago, and shortly afterwards their father disappeared, apparently unable to accept what had happened. The narrator has now traced their father to this cottage – he’s not there himself, but the place is full of papers and maps written and drawn by his hand. The novel chronicles its narrator’s attempt to piece together these texts and, hopefully, find a clue to their father’s whereabouts.Carse writes the narrator as being uncomfortable, inexperienced and unknowledgable about the wilds of the Highlands. Its either that, which I prefer to believe, or Carse himself is. To the narrator, the mountains are threatening rather than alluring. He mistakenly states that he is in a place no mountaineers tred, as there are no such places. Following their mother’s death from cancer, the narrator is faced with their father’s sudden departure to a mountain cottage. Feeling guilty for the row they had with their father before his trip, the narrator follows the father into the cottage. Equally, if on any given day, I'm struggling or my anxiety is sparking or I'm just feeling grey and depressed and overwhelmed for whatever reason, then 10 or 20 minutes of running will not fix it, but it will make it better. You mentioned that while you are loving running, you aren't racing at the moment at all?

A book by a keen runner who had long wanted to write about his mental health experiences but struggled to find a way to do so until he was caught in a mountainside storm will go on sale on Thursday. He said: “My mental health challenges are inextricably linked to being autistic and how I experience the world, which for 40 years of my life I never understood. The diagnosis has been an incredible moment, although I’m still learning and coming to terms with it.A range of current topics and cultural themes underpins the extensive programme, with content focusing on subjects as diverse as the cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine, health and wellbeing, the environment and climate crisis, today’s political environment in the UK, sport, and the criminal justice system.