The Steep Approach to Garbadale

The Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks is a richly layered family saga from one of Scotland's most celebrated and versatile literary novelists — the author of The Wasp Factory, The Crow Road, and Whit. Set against the backdrop of a sprawling Scottish country house and the colourful, complicated history of the Wopuld family, it is a novel about memory, desire, family secrets, and the ways in which the choices of the past continue to shape the present.

Alban McGill, a young man working on a tree plantation in the Scottish Highlands, is summoned back to the family seat of Garbadale to attend a crucial gathering of the Wopuld clan — a dynasty that has built its fortune on a board game called Empire!, now coveted by an American corporation. As the family debates whether to sell, Alban finds himself drawn back into a history he has been trying to escape, and into a long-suppressed love that refuses to stay buried.

Banks writes with his characteristic combination of warm humanity, sharp wit, and genuine emotional intelligence, creating a novel that is pleasurable on the surface and quietly profound underneath. The Steep Approach to Garbadale is literary fiction at its most accessible and most satisfying — a book about what families do to us, and what we carry with us long after we think we have put the past away.

Product Details

Author: Iain Banks
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN-13: 9780349119281
Dimensions: Approx. 20 × 13 × 2 cm
Weight: Approx. 0.28 kg
Delivery Time: 3–5 Business Days