AustLit

'“McCrae’s Ghost” is the story about a man who - by virtue of his family’s wealth, his education, social position and as the heir to his family’s vast estate in Scotland - should have soared. A mistake – one foolish error and one act of desperation, changed his life forever. His choice - once made, re-formed his destiny. Once the die was cast, there was no turning back – everything changed. Dreams become nightmares, hopes become fears, love turned to suspicion and every fabricated story required another lie to give it credibility. This should have been punishment enough but McCrae was to endure worse. He lived in extraordinary times and he did extraordinary things but when he was being hunted down, to save himself he did whatever was needed to stay alive. When he left the woods on that awful night he thought that would have been the end of it but it was just the beginning of a hell most could not endure. Two spirits lived side-by-side inside McCrae’s body. They pulled and tugged against each other and as his body suffered, each spirit fought to save the other. As his body decayed, neither spirit would let go. Any normal man would have passed on from this world and into whatever oblivion awaits but McCrae’s weary body was dragged on until it finally rotted. When it finally gave up the ghost, it gave up two, both soaring in death as they should have in life. This story - McCrae’s story - will take you from his beginnings in Scotland, across half the world and into the remote jungles of Nagerland where he encountered the cannibal tribes that still live there today. It will take you from the industrial revolution and a life of great privilege on a downward spiral through the great depression and its crushing hardships. On the way you will find yourself in the unforgiving trenches of the Somme and into the workhouses that grew through the depression that followed. Only death could free McCrae but he would have to wait till his body rotted off his bones for that.' (Publication summary)