#BookshelfSpotlight-‘The Mating Habits Of Stags’ by Ray Robinson

Midwinter. As former farmhand Jake, a widower in his seventies, wanders the beautiful, austere moors of North Yorkshire trying to evade capture, we learn of the events of his past: the wife he loved and lost, their child he knows cannot be his, and the deep-seated need for revenge that manifests itself in a moment of violence.

On the coast, Jake’s friend, Sheila, receives the devastating news. The aftermath of Jake’s actions, and what it brings to the surface, will change her life forever. But how will she react when he turns up at her door?

‘The Mating Habits of Stags’ is a journey through a life of guilt and things unsaid – and as beauty and tenderness blend with violence, Robinson transports us to a different world, subtly exploring love and loss in a language that both bruises and heals.

An early version of the story was released in 2016 as the short film ‘Edith'(link to movie below), starring Peter Mullan and Michelle Fairley, which was Bafta-longlisted for Best British Short Film.

I genuinely do not know how I am going to review this book, it seems as pointless and ridiculous as trying to catch and pin a butterfly to a board for the gaze of others.

Every word on every page of this 222 page novel is chosen with deliberation and care to make a maximum impact on the reader-it is intense, incredibly wrought and leaves a bone deep impression.

Jake is on the run, a manhunt on his tail, a reward on his head after killing a man. As he hunts, forages and strives to keep ahead of the police and his victim’s son’s armed posse , just long enough to get back home which is an idea, a concept he has in his head, his commune with nature reflects his life up to this point.

”The scroll of waves mimics Jake’s pulse,ebb and flow dragging pebbles and sand,misery and regret.Across the shelf of the sea Jake stares,feeling shipwrecked.This coast is his heart,the waves its liquid pulse.The itch of tears on his cheeks.Pain is he has left of them now.”

Told in both the present and flashbacks, Jake recounts his love for his wife, his overwhelming passion for her, their life together until her eventual passing in haunting detail.

”Trying to change himself over the years.Trying to let go and be a better man.But deep inside all he ever felt was guilt and shame and fury.Because once you taste what’s under the rage the hunger never leaves your mouth.”

Sheila , his friend and lover has moved from North Yorshire to Scarbrough to escape the ties of her life-her husband, daughter, granddchild and mother, watching the news for updates on Jake and hoping to see him once more.

It seems so bare to look at the plot pared down so much, it is next to impossible to capture in a couple of sentences the majesty of this novel, the way it resonates with the beauty of the moors, the assault on your senses of the iron rich blood of Jake’s kills, the wildlife he observes and the places he goes to ground in,the melodies he remembers.

Punctuated with what I think are folk songs and melodies which would probably be familiar with farmers and those local to the moors, these add depth and a sense of surrealism to what is happening. They are as embedded into Jake as his feelings for his wife, Edith, and the land he walks upon. His connection with nature and his deep,abiding love for his son in a life marred and scarred by happenstance and tragdey is incredibly moving as is Sheila’s. The lengths she went to to be her own person, to have a child then have that child grow to be the complete oopposite of what she hoped for is so well rendered you can feel her pain, her disappointment withe herself as well as Karen,her daughter are universal themes of parenting.

What you want, and expect for, and of ,your child are often so very different from the reality that it can leave you reeling.

The whys and wherefores of who Jake killed, and why he did it at the age of 73 is less important than the journey he is physically on, whilst simultaneously the very reason he is running in the first place. Sheila is waiting on the coast, he is working his way to her, then back home to Dove Cottage, the place he lived in all his life with wife Edith and son William.

It is an incredible book which , as a reader has left me feeling bereft at the very end. The entire, circuitous journey into the heart of a griefstruck man is a wounded and beautiful beast.

I am not going to explain the title, rather I will leave it for you to read in context as when it happens, it brings so much truth to the story that you really really need to read it for yourself. ‘The Mating Habits Of Stags’ has gone straight into my top 5 all time favourite books without a doubt.

Highly recommended for those who love reading intense, deep and resonant fiction .