The Low Road

"This is the story I have been writing for my whole life. With my life." writes Valerie Miner in this elegant and compassionate account of her family's migration from Edinburgh's tenements across the world. 'The Low Road' explores location and dislocation in a large, poverty stricken Scottish family. Focusing on the life journeys of her grandmother, her mother, and herself, Miner searches for truth about family members, unveiling family secrets and missing histories. This powerful and moving memoir is a dramatic passage through poverty, immigration, and national and sexual identity. Utterly engrossing, the book navigates between family fable and fact as Miner leads us through her discoveries about back-street abortion and tuberculosis, orphanhood, exile, estrangement, and reconciliation to reach a place of acceptance and understanding.