Samedi the Deafness

appendix a Note on the Naming of Characters

In Scotland, in a town called Rosewell, there is a small cemetery. I lived for a month nearby.

I would go sometimes to the cemetery in Rosewell, and for this novel, as a tribute to the land on which I wrote this book, and to the people there, I have named many of my characters out of the cemetery.

Most of the names I chose were men who died in mining accidents, though some died in the Great War, others in their sleep.

Nothing in the book has anything to do with the lives these men and women led. I felt a gratefulness to the place, to Hawthornden, Rosslyn, the River Esk, and to this Rosewell graveyard, and it seemed the right thing to do to fill my book with the vague shapes of their letters.

Here is a list of the names I found there.

James Carlyle

John Sutherland

Cpl. Arch Renwick, died in France, age twenty-one, 1918

James Sim

Pat Jordan, died at Kelty, 16 April 1929

Grieve Cochrane

Will Watson, killed at Whitehill Colliery, 10 June 1929

Andrew Morris, Whitehill Colliery, 1934, age twenty-four

Samuel Mathieson, Whitehill Colliery, 1940

Charles Higinson, Whitehill Colliery, 1935, age twenty-one

Leonora Loft

James Leslie

Lily Violet

Martin Stark, died at Hawthornden, “There is no death”

Robert Wallace Wight, killed at Bilston Glen Colliery, 1965

Spiers Jones

John Clechorn, age twenty-one, “who fell asleep at Midfield Cottages” 12 October 1908

Thomas McHale, pit accident, 1935

Thomas McHale, accident, 1933, age twenty-one

David Graham, Whitehill Colliery, 1937, age thirty-three

James Abernathy Stewart, Whitehill Colliery, 1932, age forty-seven

Margret Grieve Cochrane, “Asleep”