Guynd: A Scottish Journal

A woman from New England falls for a charming Scottish landowner only to discover she’s also in a complex relationship with his family’s 400-year-old ancestral estate, The Guynd. Funny and heartwarming, this is the story of a house, a place, and a marriage.

Guynd (rhymes with “wind“) is Gaelic for “a high, marshy place.” It’s there that Belinda Rathbone’s memoir takes place after her unlikely marriage and move to pastoral Scotland. There she learns to cope with a grand but crumbling mansion still recovering from the effects of two world wars, an overgrown landscape, a derelict garden, troublesome tenants, local aristocracy, Scottish rituals, and a husband who loathes change.

Alternating between enchantment and near despair, Rathbone digs into family and local history in an effort to understand her new surroundings and the ties that bind us through generations. “The book lifts and excels,” wrote The New York Times, “Rathbone nails down a little bit of the Scottish soul in all its stark splendor.”

The perfect book for anyone who loves a fish-out-of-water romance and a touching story of home.

Belinda Rathbone is a biographer and historian who has written widely on 20th-century American photography. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Walker Evans: A Biography, as well as important essays on the work of Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, and many contemporary artists and photographers. Ms. Rathbone’s books with Godine include the memoir, The Boston Raphael: A Mysterious Painting, an Embattled Museum in an Era of Change & A Daughter’s Search for the Truth .