In the Footsteps of The Good Father – Liam McIlvanney

Submitted: 1st July 2025

In the Footsteps of The Good Father

In a certain sense The Good Father could take place anywhere. It’s the story of a child going missing from an idyllic seaside community. Gold Coast of Australia, Monterey Bay, North Cornwall, Hokkaido: all of these places would fit the bill. But it’s set in the village of Fairlie, North Ayrshire. And it draws pretty deeply on the topography of that little corner of Scotland.

Fairlie, North Ayrshire

Location map of The Good Father

Fairlie feels like a place where nothing can go wrong. There’s a single main thoroughfare with a few streets leading off it. The village is sheltered by the hills that rise behind it. In front there’s the beach, a narrow stretch of firth, and the comforting bulk of the island of Cumbrae. It feels safe, enclosed, shut off from the dangers of the wider world.

Location map of The Good Father

As a writer, I liked how this sense of enclosure concentrates the action in a sort of natural amphitheatre. There’s an elemental dimension – sea, hills, island, village – that lends a mythic quality to the tale. And the setting lulls the novel’s protagonists – Gordon and Sarah Rutherford – into assuming that they are insulated from danger. And so, when their son Rory goes missing from the beach outside their house, it hits all the harder.

Largs – just up the road from Fairlie

Location map of The Good Father

Part of my aim in The Good Father was to explore the ongoing emotional impact of a missing child. What happens when the cameras leave, the news cycle moves on, and the community picks up the pieces? What happens when you keep falling, when there’s no bottom to your abyss of pain and dread? What does that do to your relationships, to your outlook on the world? What might it make you capable of? Those questions, I think, are more rewarding to explore in a small tight-knit village than in a faceless big city.

The Good Father Liam McIlvanney

Location map of The Good Father

When you’re writing about a specific place it’s always best to spend time there if you can. Soak up the details. Get to know the quality of the light, the precise gradations of green on the hills and fields. I possibly took this a little far and spent about a year in Fairlie. Although I live in New Zealand, my lecturing job lets me come home on research leave every few years. I spent around six months in Fairlie in 2018 and again in 2023.

Fairlie Beach

Location map of The Good Father

This allowed me to get to know that area intimately. Almost every day I walked the path along the beach where Rory goes missing. I could imagine exactly how Gordon and Sarah would react, the panic they would feel. I walked the hills above the village where the rescuers search for Rory. It was a godsend to be able to write so much of the novel on the spot. I finished the novel in a cabin in the garden of my sister-in-law’s house in Fairlie.

Fairlie harbour

Location map of The Good Father

Water plays an important part in the novel. The narrow strip of firth in front of the village is called the Fairlie Roads. It looks like the safest, most innocuous body of water you could imagine. The ferry to Cumbrae takes only ten minutes. You feel as though you could swim to the island if you had to. In fact, it’s one of the deepest harbours on the west coast of the UK. I loved playing with the idea of what might be lurking below the surface, what dark secrets might come to light.

Location map of The Good Father

I love returning to Ayrshire, in person and in my fiction. It’s the place I know best, the place I’ll keep writing about. If readers want to experience the world of The Good Father, they should head for Fairlie. Take the coastal path along the beach. Stop half-way for a pint at the Village Inn (‘The Mudhook’ in the novel). Climb the hills behind the village and absorb the magnificent views of the Firth of Clyde. Just keep a close eye on your loved ones.

Liam McIIvanney

Thank you Liam! Right what about we grab a pint in that pub you’ve just mentioned? Hears doors swinging. Oh *looks around* he’s already inside. Wait for me!