NOBODY'S EMPIRE

A young Scottish man waits for the moment to come when his composure returns.

“I’m just nervous,” says Stephen, the narrator of singer-songwriter Murdoch’s debut novel. “I’m nervous when I wake up and nervous when I go to bed.” Stephen, 23, is plagued with anxiety, but that’s not all—he’s also navigating the end of a romantic relationship, and, for the past three years, has been laid low by myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: “Imagine having the first day of a cold or the flu every day of your life. Feeling sick and weak and…poisoned every day. It’s what that does to you. It’s the days and the years. It fucks everything up.” He spends his days in Glasgow listening to his beloved music, or hanging out with his friend Carrie and flatmate, Richard, both of whom also struggle with ME/CFS. After appointments with doctors prove fruitless, Stephen and Richard decide to take a three-month trip to California, hoping the sun and American medical science will improve the state they’re in. The pair make the most of their Golden State adventure, playing music, making friends, and eventually realizing that while ill, they’re still capable of doing things they love. Not much happens in this novel—as Stephen says, “This is not a heavenly story, this is a slow human story, where people keep trundling along, jostled and occasionally pricked by circumstances and tripped up by their feelings.” But that’s what makes it so accomplished. Murdoch drills down deep into the character of Stephen while not neglecting the others; he clearly sympathizes with a young man with a horrible disease that not long ago was derided as “the yuppie flu,” its sufferers gaslit when they sought treatment. (To be clear, this, unfortunately, still happens.) Fans of Murdoch’s band, Belle and Sebastian, will appreciate a few Easter eggs that the author includes (ever wonder how Sukie ended up in that art school?), but you don’t have to be an indie-pop fan to appreciate this compassionate, sweet, beautifully written novel.

Murdoch proves he’s as good a novelist as he is a musician.