Forty years after the release of the Beatles’ ground-breaking “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album, comes this first novel from one of Scotland’s most innovative thinkers and commentators. John Lennon did spend some summer holidays in Durness in Sutherland, the most north-westerly settlement on the mainland. But what if he had left something behind? Something which could transform or even destroy the place? Something which the powers that be, backed by American fizzy drinks money, could turn into “the next big thing” of Scottish tourism?
Can a disillusioned drunken academic, an underemployed tourist officer and the imagination of a local builder take on a cynically ambitious University principal, a political peer fighting for survival and a millionaire dreaming of ever greater riches? Can they put the genie of progress back in its bottle before a remote Highland community is destroyed for ever?
Michael Russell’s book combines humour, satire, and a sharp eye for the hypocritical and the pretentious. It is an allegory, a comedy, and a love story – and it pays homage to one of the true musical legends of the 20th century.

“The Next Big Thing” is a very funny and often moving first novel which is also entirely honest in its setting. Based on the true story of John Lennon’s links with Sutherland, it casts a sharp, satirical and entertaining eye on today’s Scotland.
Iain Anderson, BBC Radio Scotland.

Michael Russell is a well known Scottish writer and commentator who regularly appears in the press and on radio and television. He was a Front Bench SNP MSP between 1999 and 2003, and is a former Chief Executive of the party. Brought up in Ayrshire and educated there and at Edinburgh University, he has lived in the Western Isles, Inverness-shire and South Lanarkshire. He presently lives with his wife in Argyll. He has written a number of works of non-fiction, as well as contributing to volumes edited by others, and most recently collaborated with Dennis MacLeod on the controversial and innovative political polemic “Grasping the Thistle”. He is currently completing a book on the Shirley McKie case, co-written with Shirley’s father Iain. “The Next Big Thing” is his first novel.

Balnakeil Press is a new imprint set up by Kevin Crowe and Simon Long, owners of Loch Croispol Bookshop & Restaurant in Durness. Balnakeil Press aims to publish high quality books about Sutherland and Wester Ross, or written by authors from or living in the area. Apart from “The Next Big Thing” other books planned for 2007 include a history of Cape Wrath, a previously unpublished autobiography of a Scottish missionary to China, and a bilingual edition of the poetry of the great Sutherland Gaelic bard Rob Donn.

Publication Date: February 2007. ISBN: 978-1-905974-00-9
Recommended Retail Price: £6.99
Pages: 147

2 Balnakeil, Durness, Sutherland IV27 4PT 01971511777 e mail lochcroispoil@btopenworld.com