Peter May’s The Lewis Man and Rebecca Wait’s Our Fathers: A Scottish Gothic Reading of Island-Set Crime Fiction

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15210%2F25%3A73632929" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15210/25:73632929 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.2478/hjeas/2025/31/2/8" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.2478/hjeas/2025/31/2/8</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/hjeas/2025/31/2/8" target="_blank" >10.2478/hjeas/2025/31/2/8</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Peter May’s The Lewis Man and Rebecca Wait’s Our Fathers: A Scottish Gothic Reading of Island-Set Crime Fiction

Original language description

This article examines the intersection of crime fiction, the Gothic, and the Scottish island setting through Rebecca Wait’s psychological thriller Our Fathers (2020) and Peter May’s detective novel The Lewis Man (2012). The analysis illustrates how the two novels incorporate selected elements typical of the Scottish Gothic: the taxing process of the construction of identity, the notion of the divided self, the impossibility of forgetting the past, and the ways in which history can be written on and read from the body. In Our Fathers, the fictional island of Litta becomes a claustrophobic space that reinforces the protagonist’s haunted inheritance and struggle with paternal legacy. In contrast, The Lewis Man situates its mystery within the sublime landscapes of the Outer Hebrides, where peat bogs and fragmented memory render personal and national histories simultaneously fragile and recoverable. Ultimately, both texts illustrate how Scottish island-set crime fiction mobilizes Gothic aesthetics to interrogate questions of history, identity, and place. The paper suggests that the island setting not only supports but intensifies Gothic concerns, making the island a particularly productive locus for contemporary Scottish Gothic and crime writing alike.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60206 - Specific literatures

Project

—

Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies

ISSN

1218-7364

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

31

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

HU - HUNGARY

Number of pages

15

Pages from-to

393-407

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105025531534