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"Though his life was bound by the small, island landscape he inhabited, it was rich, and richly rendered, in his poetry. His world, in all its wondrous ordinariness, has been brought beautifully to life by Maggie Fergusson's painstakingly faithful labour of love. 'George strikes me as one who followed his true course,' says Heaney in the introduction. 'He didn't fail himself.' Nor, in this exquisite and consistently illuminating book, does she. "
Sean O'Hagan

full review at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1754625,00.html

"Somehow, in between the dark times and illnesses, the writing continued. His Orkney stories were acclaimed, the bursaries and royalties came in, and, to his horror, he became a celebrity. He felt himself a charlatan, as Thomas Mann said all writers sometimes do. Still he trusted his faith in joy, given glimpses of it sufficient for him. Strangely, this is what I would call an inspiriting story, not a depressing one, despite the lows, the loneliness and the drinking; and it is very well told."
P.J. Kavanagh
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/book_review.cgi?past-00281

"While there is no end to the number of stories and anecdotes and apocryphal tales told about each and every one of the other poets of the second wave of the Scottish Literary Renaissance, literary gossip about GMB has always been very thin on the ground. This again makes Maggie Fergusson's revealing and compassionate biography all the more remarkable and all the more welcome.

Fergusson's book has been many years in the making and has been carefully researched. It is also sensitively written. About some of GMB's less attractive characteristics - his weaknesses and failings - she is not uncritical, but for the greater part, Fergusson writes most warmly and very affectionately.

In The Life of George Mackay Brown, Maggie Fergusson has paid a great tribute to her subject, as well as a huge service, I believe, to future Scottish literary biographies."

http://www.scottishbookcollector.co.uk/writers/non-fiction-reviews/listerm18.php

This is an extraordinarily good book: it is sensitive, witty and has an excellent sense of the vitality of the apparently unimportant details that make up lives and characters. Fergusson also vividly depicts the grand, austere, treeless topography of Orkney - without which the life of George Mackay Brown cannot be imagined or understood.

Lucy Lethbridge is literary editor of the Tablet
http://www.newstatesman.com/Books/200603270041

Maggie Fergusson interviewed George Mackay Brown several times and is the only biographer to whom he, a reluctant subject, gave his blessing. Through his letters and through conversations with his wide acquaintance, she discovers that this particular artist's life was not only fascinating but also vivid, courageous and surprising.

http://www.orcadian.co.uk/books/bookweek.htm?StoreUrl=orcadian&bookid=0712670599&db=2

Scottish Book of the Month: George McKay Brown by Maggie Ferguson

[George Mackay Brown] ... was open among his circle of friends, and in researching her biography, Maggie Fergusson held conversations with many of them. She also sifted through the reams of correspondence he enjoyed with strangers. A voluble letter writer, he revealed himself more easily in writing than in company. Many of his most interesting and beautiful letters and poems were addressed to or inspired by Stella Cartwright, the tragically short-lived "Muse of Rose Street," to whom he was once engaged. Fergusson interviewed Mackay Brown himself several times and is the only biographer to whom this reluctant subject, who once said that "the lives of artists are as boring and also as uniquely fascinating as any or every other life" was willing to assist. The result of her endeavours is an uplifting and fascinating life of one of Scotland 's most interesting literary sons.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/203748/026-9204272-7008415

How much of Brown's life was a place of suffering and decision, as well as quiet and monotony, is revealed in Maggie Fergusson's excellent and surprising biography.
Kathleen Jamie
Guardian 'Book of the Week'
5.5.06
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/poetry/0,,1768510,00.htm