by Michael Pedersen
Life on a remote island is turned upside down by a stranger's arrival, testing bonds of family and tradition and leaving a young dreamer's future hanging in the balance.
It's no ordinary existence on the rugged isle of Muckle Flugga. The elements run riot and the very rocks that shape the place begin to shift under their influence. The only human inhabitants are the lighthouse keeper, known as The Father, and his otherworldly son, Ouse. Them, and the occasional lodger to keep the wolf from the door.
When one of those lodgers - Firth, a chaotic writer - arrives from Edinburgh, the limits of the world the keeper and his son cling to begin to crumble. A tug of war ensues between Firth and the lighthouse keeper for Ouse's affections - and his future. As old and new ways collide, and life-changing decisions loom, what will the tides leave standing in their wake?
Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet and author, the Writer in Residence at The University of Edinburgh and the current Edinburgh Makar (Poet Laureate). He’s published three acclaimed collections of poetry, his most recent, The Cat Prince & Other Poems, won Best Poetry 2023 at the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards. His prose debut, Boy Friends, was published by Faber & Faber in 2022 to rave reviews and was a Sunday Times Critics Choice. Pedersen has been shortlisted for the Forward Prizes Poetry and the Saltire Scottish National Book Awards, and has won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. His work has attracted praise from the likes of Stephen Fry, Kae Tempest, Irvine Welsh, Shirley Manson, Maggie Smith, Nicola Sturgeon, Jackie Kay and many more. He also co-founded the prize-winning literary collective Neu! Reekie!.
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