SOURCE: Hamilton, Ian. “Bohemian Rhapsodist.” Guardian (10 July 1999): 6.

In the following essay, Hamilton traces Mackay's life and literary development.

Shena Mackay has never been one for trendy self-promotion. Like Lyris, the neglected painter in her most recent novel, The Artist's Widow, Mackay would—on balance—rather be overlooked than vulgarly exposed. “A publicist's nightmare” is how her own publicists have now and then described her, and Mackay takes a certain pride in their exasperation.

Even today, with 10 highly-praised books in print (two, The Artist's Widow, and Dunedin, are out in Vintage paperback this month), and with a paean from Julie Burchill to amplify her blurbs (Burchill recently called her “the best writer in the world today”), Mackay cannot quite bring herself to bustle on the circuits.

As she told me recently: “I do think the whole climate for writers these days is so vulgar. It's all so money-led. I...