Three days before her fifty-first birthday, Clio Campbell - one-hit-wonder, political activist, life-long-love and one-night-stand - kills herself in her friend Ruth's spare bedroom. And, as practical as she is, Ruth doesn't know what to do. Or how to feel. Because knowing and loving Clio Campbell was never straightforward.
To Neil, she was his great unrequited love. He'd known it since their days on picket lines as teenagers. Now she's a sentence in his email inbox: Remember me well.
The media had loved her as a sexy young starlet but laughed her off as a ranting spinster as she aged. But with news of her suicide, Clio Campbell is transformed into a posthumous heroine for politically chaotic times.
Stretching over five decades, taking in the miners' strikes to Brexit and beyond; hopping between a tiny Scottish island, a Brixton anarchist squat, the bloody Genoa G8 protests, the poll tax riots and Top of the Pops, Scabby Queen is a portrait of a woman who refuses to compromise, told by her friends and lovers, enemies and fans.
As word spreads of what Clio has done, half a century of memories, of pain and of joy are wrenched to the surface. Those who loved her, those who hated her, and those that felt both ways at once, are forced to ask one question: Who was Clio Campbell?
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Teatime telly was changed forever one Thursday evening in March this year.
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(@4thEstateBooks, 23 July 2020, ebook, 393 pages, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs, # popsugarreadingchallenge, a book you have seen on someone's bookshelf)
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I wanted to read this book as soon as I saw it on a bookshelf on The Big Scottish Book Show because I loved the title and the glowing reviews made me want to read it even more. I am beyond disappointed with this book. Clearly, they read a different book as Scabby Queen did very little for me. I really wanted to like it but just couldn't no matter how hard I tried. I loved the premise, Clio's suicide and chapters that span the decades of her colourful life as she's remembered by those who knew her the best. The book is well written so should have been a winner for me. Yet, it wasn't. It was okay. The main issue I had is that I really didn't like Clio as a character. The author didn't make me sympathise or emphasise with her. If I can't truly care about a character a book falls a little flat for me.
