Disruptions of Time: Found Manuscripts, Hogg’s Influence, and Queer Time in Helen McClory’s Bitterhall (2021)

This paper considers Helen McClory’s 2021 novel Bitterhall as one that self-reflexively engages with Scottish Gothic literary traditions, interrogating its own relationship with James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) and expressing authorial concerns around influence and the production of derivative pastiche. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick offers a specifically queer reading of Confessions, and this article finds a parallel with Bitterhall, suggesting Tom’s anxiety about his sexuality is what makes him vulnerable to the power of a mysterious diary. Drawing from Timothy C. Baker’s exploration of the found manuscript, this paper further considers Bitterhall’s relationship with time and temporal disruption as queer, indicating how the novel’s cyclical narrative style and collapsing of past and present disrupt linearity and indicate a history of queer identities. This paper argues for McClory’s inclusion in wider discussions of contemporary Scottish Gothic and indicates the potential for fresh engagements with Scottish literary traditions.