This debut novel by award-winning poet Michael Pedersen tells the story of a lighthouse keeper and his son on the island of Muckle Flugga, the northernmost inhabited point of these islands.
Although a real island, the novel offers mythic versions of both Muckle Flugga and the Edinburgh of our other protagonist, Firth. In the world of Muckle Flugga, people are writers and lighthouse keepers and candlemakers, and although the real world provides a framework, it’s easy to forget once immersed in the novel’s lush landscapes.
Pedersen’s linguistic register encompasses both high drama and whimsy, and he excels at immersing us in the vivid seascapes of the island and its surroundings. The plot tracks the redemptive connection that blossoms between Ouse, the solitary but inspired lighthouse keeper’s son, and Firth, the despairing and morally compromised writer who visits the island to fulfil a childhood dream before a planned suicide.
The lighthouse keeper, known only as The Father, casts a shadow over proceedings. He is a convincingly-drawn tyrant and although twisted by grief, we come to understand the man he once was. The island itself proves a magnetic character, infecting the dreamscapes of the characters in a manner reminiscent at times of The Magus by John Fowles. Here, the natural world is transcendently beautiful but charged with agency: “The same stars that reflect dreamily in Muckle Flugga’s windowpanes are those that send ships spinning in circles until the sea’s ready to claim them…”
As a debut, there are quirks in the writing that can prove frustrating – it takes a number of chapters before the dialogue between the characters begins to flow, with the omniscient narrator often telling us things we might enjoy discovering through real-time interaction between the characters. The italicisation of the dialogue has a similarly distancing effect.
Although the descriptions are lyrical, there are times when a sentence such as “What’s outside hits him like a flying hug from a fond face in a faraway place” suggests a preference for profusion over precision. However, this is a singular and ambitious debut, and those who enjoy a serving of fantasy with their literary fiction will find this an absorbing and immersive read.
