Playing Through: A Year of Life and Links Along the Scottish Coast

Gillespie, Curtis

Biographies & Memoirs

Doubleday, Canada

Playing Through

Sports & Outdoors

Golf

Doubleday Canada, Limited

Gullane is a small town of a few thousand people a dozen miles east of Edinburgh. Gullane Hill stands out proud and solitary - according to locals, it was put there by God so it could be used for golf and nothing but. This is an account of a year the author and his family spent there.

Playing Through: A Year of Life and the Links Along the Scottish Coast

SIMON SCHUSTER (TRADE DIVISION)

Someone like that: Life stories

Rowan Books

In this lyrical, evocative, and heartfelt memoir, Curtis Gillespie chronicles the year he spent with his wife and daughters in quaint Gullane, Scotland. Against the backdrop of a uniquely beautiful landscape, Gillespie deftly explores the bonds of fatherhood and friendship, and the irresistible lure of links golf. When Curtis Gillespie first played a round in Gullane, he was a graduate student on the golf team at the University of St. Andrews. He wrote to his father back in Canada about the unmatched peacefulness and loveliness of the place and promised that the two of them would golf there together someday. After his father passed away before they could play the Scottish course, Gillespie vowed to return himself. Thirteen years after his first visit, Gillespie uproots his wife and two young daughters and moves to Gullane, hoping to learn something about himself, and his life, in the process. Early on Gillespie teams up with two aging local golfers named Archie and Jack (members at Gullane Golf Club for more than a century between them), and the ensuing friendship that blossoms between the elderly Scotsmen and the young Canadian infuses Playing Through with a sense of enchanting familiarity and easygoing charm. Gillespie samples courses like Muirfield and St. Andrews under the delightfully gruff guidance of Archie and Jack, soaks up the natural beauty of the countryside, and sets out to capture the full flavor of village life, haggis and all. The gregarious and eccentric locals, the stunning setting, the town’s history, and even his family’s response to their new life all converge in a warm, wonderful story rich with comedy and insight. Skillfully interwoven through the narrative are anecdotes about Gillespie’s much-missed father, an ordinary man who inspired extraordinary love from his son. And though his father is not there to share in Gullane’s charms, the experience of moving to the village and coming to know its inhabitants helps Gillespie through an unexpected passage of discovery about his father, himself, and his own journey through fatherhood.

Crown

A blend of evocative memoir, lyrical travelogue, and passionate golf pilgrimage, Playing Through chronicles the year Curtis Gillespie spent with his family in quaint Gullane, Scotland. A seaside town crammed with championship golf courses, Gullane charmed Gillespie so much as a college student that he vowed to return one day with his father. That journey never came to pass, so thirteen years later Gillespie uprooted his wife and daughters and moved to the small Scottish village, hoping to learn something about himself and the delightfully gruff natives with their peculiarly addicting sport. Against the backdrop of a uniquely beautiful landscape, Playing Through deftly explores the bonds of fatherhood, friendship, and the irresistible lure of links golf, and in the process offers up a story rich in comedy, warmth, and insight.

Broadway Books

Paul Munk is a socially conscious idealist, leaning left in his political convictions. His skills as a writer for a current affairs magazine have garnered him an assignment that will challenge his relationships, present and future: to follow and profile Daniel Code, a member of the religious right who believes he has been called upon by God to lead his right wing party to national power. A growing attraction to Code’s daughter - and media handler - Rachel, complicates Paul’s intent to broil the candidate publicly. Paul’s family, disconnected by the same issues of faith and politics, is forced to adjust to one son’s release from prison. Richard Munk, Paul’s older brother, has served his time behind bars and is now intent on rebuilding his life with an American woman with whom he has corresponded. When Richard crosses the US border and loses contact with his family, Paul follows his trail, hoping to find his brother, and pursue a relationship that can sustain their differences.

Crown Shyness

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Brindle & Glass Pub Ltd

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