Welcome to the website of Scottish author Jim Murdoch. Thanks for dropping by.

If this is your first visit you're probably wondering what kind of writer I am. Would I compare myself to Franz Kafka or Douglas Adams? To tell you the truth the answer is an odd mixture of the two, a bit like chocolate covered pretzels — they shouldn't work but ...

The briefest of bios

I'm a 49 year old Scottish writer. I live on the outskirts of Glasgow with my wife. I'm currently struggling with my fifth novel and it's winning.

So what's with the butterfly?

When I was looking for an image that encapsulated my work the choice was obvious. I've long been fascinated with the inkblot test, with people's willingness to see shapes in clouds, the stars and to read in between the lines, to look for the truth in the strangest of places, but it wasn't till I wrote the short story Déjà Vu that I considered using it as a logo and decided upon Rorschachian covers for all my books.

What then is the truth about lies?

People have been searching for the truth since the dawn of man, plain truths, simple truths, brutal truths, fat truths, pink truths, awful truths, inconvenient truths and the "holy grail" of truths, the truth that will set us free but the best we can come up with are half-truths, assumptions and out-and-out lies and somehow we make do with these. We make bricks without straw or, at best, with imaginary straw.

I make no attempt in any of my writing to bring you any truths. I have no doubt that there are many lurking about in there. It's hard to write so much without stumbling over one or two in the dark. Make of them what you will.

Why all the links?

I think the internet is wonderful. I use it constantly to check my facts and one of the places I regularly wind up is Wikipedia. It has its faults but most of the articles are written by people who care about what they're writing about. I, myself, contributed articles on all of Beckett's plays with the exception of Endgame; it took six weeks just to research Waiting for Godot and I couldn't commit any more time to the project.

A lot of the references I make will be unfamiliar to people either not from the United Kingdom or not of a certain age. This way, you can get the idea what I'm on about at the click on a button.

Please let me know if any of the links die on us.

 
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