Faced with a choice between her harsh farming life & the seductive but distant world of books & learning Chris Guthrie eventually decides to remain in her rural community bound by her intense love of the l&. However the intervention of the First World War leaves her choice in tatters. Chris is now a widowed single mother: her farm & the land it occupies is altered beyond recognition
- trees torn down people displaced. But although the novel describes a way of life which is in decline it also presents a strong image of hope. Chris adapts to her new world displaying an intuitive strength which like the land which she loves endures despite everything. Sunset Song" is a testament to Scotlands agricultural past to the world of crofters & tradition which was destroyed in the First World War. It is a powerful description of life in the first few decades of the century through the evocation of change & the lyrical intensity of its prose. Renowned expert Ian Campbell has produced the first new scholarly text for fifteen years & has the blessing of the Lewis Grassic Gibbon estate."