Safe Return Doubtful

Pedersen is the currently the Makar of Edinburgh, the city’s literary ambassador, with a specific role to write poetry about the city. This is his debut novel, a boldly experimental piece set on a remote island and involving just three characters.

Muckle Flugga is a few kilometres north west of Unst in Shetland. I stood at Hermaness Nature Reserve, the nearby cliffs, with the wind howling and the rain hammering and the skuas diving, a couple of summers ago, and admired its lighthouse and rugged coastline. As a setting for a novel it is as spectacular as it can get. Its shore station, where the off-duty keepers used to stay, served as an excellent base for my campervan for a couple of nights. The light was automated in 1995, which means this is an historical novel, though no dates are given, and it is, of course, fictional.

Here, the Father is the lighthouse keeper, grief stricken since the recent death of The Mother, his work and the isolation keeps him going, but barely. His 19 year old son Ouse is something of a comfort as he is determined that he will be his successor. Despite being taken out of school early, Ouse takes pleasure in writing, sketching, even knitting, and from the wild nature of his island home.

Edinburghian Firth arrives by the supply boat, as a guest to stay in the bothy, to bird-watch. But Firth, 25 years old and an artist, has arrived in a state of torment and depression, with one last thing to do before he kills himself. The large part of the novel is taken up with their burgeoning relationships, particulalry between Ouse and Firth, and also with the natural and a hint of the supernatural, as mortality and morality are explored.

Pedersen’s writing is upbeat, and at its best when describing the landscape of the island, its flora and fauna. Though the theme is one of grief, the novel is also a celebration of life. Its weakness is that it is too long. Some more severe editing would cut it by perhaps as much as a third, certainly a quarter, and it has the potential to be really good. Certainly, for a debut novel, it is impressive.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5