Michael Pedersen’s writing truly sparkles with energy and originality. He has published three acclaimed poetry collections, with his most recent, The Cat Prince & Other Poems, winning Best Poetry at the 2023 Books Are My Bag Readers Awards. His non-fiction book, Boy Friends, was a Sunday Times Critics’ Choice. Pedersen also co-founded Neu! Reekie! – a prize-winning literary production house that produced cutting-edge shows in Scotland and the world for over ten years. He is currently Edinburgh Makar and writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh.
Muckle Flugga, Pedersen’s debut novel, follows the lives of the only human inhabitants on a remote island – the lighthouse keeper, known as The Father, and his otherworldly son, Ouse. Their world is turned upside down by a stranger’s arrival. The bonds of family and tradition are tested, leaving a young dreamer’s future hanging in the balance.
What planted the seed of the novel?
I’ve worshipped at the altar of novels since I learned to read. I always hoped I’d write one; I knew it couldn’t be rushed and had to be story-driven. The characters and narrative had to wrangle me into the action, rather than the other way round.
I’m fascinated by watchtowers, and lighthouses are a pedigree breed – lampposts of the whale road. I wrote the first draft of my book Boy Friends in the – somewhat spooky – Curfew Tower in Northern Ireland and was thereafter searching for its sibling edifice in Scotland. When I gazed off to Muckle Flugga from Unst – back in 2019 during a Bill Drummond & Neu! Reekie! expedition – it was like a bell rang inside me. I knew this was the place my characters had to dwell. It was somewhere people once lived – formerly the most northerly inhabited island in the UK – newly unpeopled. Something about the way the light glazed over the sleeping lighthouse suggested ghosts would be lingering nearby, and there was only one way to find out.
Muckle Flugga holds a looking glass up to isolation, grief, and toxic masculinity. Did you set out to explore these themes, or did they emerge naturally in the writing process?
The narrative of Muckle Flugga was slowly marinating as I toured and discussed Boy Friends, so of course, a friendship-love story needed to be at the heart of this tale. And for that to sing with authenticity, we needed to see stoicism up against sensitivity. Loss and grief, yup, those too. Like many, I’m still carrying the loss of Scott [Hutchison]; I always will be. Though his lustre and the gift of his friendship is something to be celebrated, the weight of his absence is never not with me. We all carry heavy loads into even our happiest of moments. My characters are drawn from that heritage.
The landscape is so prominent in the novel. What drew you to an island setting and such a focus on the natural world?
I wanted the island to feel like a character in itself: a shapeshifter, a physical being that supported life and was also overwhelmed by it. I never managed to set foot on Muckle Flugga: it was a land mass I marvelled at from afar whilst being wholly unable to touch or tamper with it. That made it the perfect mix of real and mythical. I found that thrilling. So my Muckle Flugga is ten times the size of the real Muckle Flugga. It’s the orgy love child of legit Muckle Flugga, Gormenghast, Mont-Saint- Michel, and your favourite Gothic castle.
Muckle Flugga is your debut novel, after publishing several poetry collections. How did you find the process of writing long-form fiction compared to poetry?
Adored it. More generally, I love the dissolution of the genres in all forms of writing. Some of my favourite poetry is prose poetry; some of my favourite fiction is auto-fiction. Most of my writing, whilst rooted in a genre, seeps into the realms in between. This novel leans on what I’ve learned writing poetry and non-fiction, combining those power forces into what I hope is my most captivating and, importantly, welcoming work to date.
Who were your literary inspirations for the novel, from Scotland and beyond?
They’re wild and varied, a veritable literary buffet. For some of the more fantastical elements, Alasdair Gray’s work has been immensely valuable. In terms of the throaty sound of Scotland, my recollections of reading Neil Gunn’s The Highland River and Silver Darlings were reverberating around inside. For contemporary questions of identity, place, and purpose, these are asked most deftly by the poets — the likes of Edwin Morgan, Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead, and Norman MacCaig foremost to mind. When describing the book, my editor referenced Alan Garner. Shirley Manson cited Orwell; I’m humbled by that but wouldn’t be so brazen. I’ve read and relished them both, I will say that.
On a related note, and as a final question: Robert Louis Stevenson features in the novel as Ouse’s ghostly confidant. Who (excluding RLS) from past literary figures would you choose to be yours?
Och, there’s so many. First up, Tolkien, natch. I’d want to know what he thought of all the cinematic adaptations. And Charles Dickens as a grandmaster of storytelling would be rare handy. Shakespeare would be sublime to resurrect for advice on the human experience, but I’d also want the team of writers rumoured to have co-penned some of his most seminal works, Emilia Lanier being top of that tree. She was the first woman in England to assert herself as a professional poet – epic! And Dorothy Parker would be priceless as my plus-one to all high-stakes social occasions. I’ll stop there, though I don’t want to.
Muckle Flugga is out now, published by Faber & Faber. Available here.
Main Photo Credit Shaun Murawski
