None So Pretty

One Sunday in October 1994, the residents of the small Argyll fishing village of Tarbert got a rare surprise. In with their Sunday newspapers was a letter from the proprietor of the newsagent Kiltie's, the popular 64-year-old Bob Pine. It thanked them for their continued custom and their support during the long convalescence of Bob's wife from a bad car crash. It then informed them, matter-of-factly, that Bob had always felt himself to be a woman rather than a man, and that from now on he would be dressing as a woman, with a view to a sex-change operation. The letter was signed "Rebecca Pine". Reg McKay tells the story of Bob/Rebecca's life, through Bob's many identities (soldier, teacher, actor, artist), his complex relationship with second wife Jean, and Rebecca's eventual rebirth as a woman. It's a familiar enough story, but McKay interweaves it here with another parallel, more mysterious strand--a lone woman called Newman who spends her weekends in Tarbert, and who has a strange hatred for Bob Pine. There are many unresolved questions here, but Rebecca's story serves as a testimony to the single-minded determination of one man to live as he wants, in the face of village prejudice and family expectations.--Alan Stewart