2025 Saltire Literary Award (shortlist)
'A quirky and original debut that sizzles with scintillating prose.' BERNARDINE EVARISTO
'Michael Pedersen is a rare writer of real passion and power and this debut is phenomenal.' MATT HAIG
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?
Genre: Fantasy
'Michael Pedersen is a rare writer of real passion and power and this debut is phenomenal.' MATT HAIG
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?
Genre: Fantasy
Praise for this book
"Michael Pedersen's lush, rococo prose imbues Muckle Flugga with a fantastical, magical, gasp-inducing gait. It is both a domestic tale of island life and a searing paean to the power of art and imagination." - Alan Cumming
"A quirky and original debut that sizzles with scintillating prose." - Bernardine Evaristo
"Muckle Flugga is an epic, a glorious and wonderful book; the language so inventive and imaginative and the soul of it so tender and true." - Salena Godden
"A lyrical, windswept novel of a lighthouse keeper and his son that is both small and big in all the good ways. A story about place, about family, about love, the forces of change and so much more. You can feel the energy and life in every sentence. Michael Pedersen is a rare writer of real passion and power and this debut is phenomenal." - Matt Haig
"A fever dream of a book, melding myth and magic to the monumental landscape of Scotland." - Ian Rankin
"To read Muckle Flugga is to stand on the edge of a sea cliff and scream into a storm. This is thrilling, beautiful and impossibly alive writing, bringing all of Michael Pedersen's ferocious and tender skills as poet and memoirist to his debut novel. There is clearly no form of writing Michael cannot master." - Chris Carse Wilson
"Michael Pederson's debut novel is exuberant, soulful and affecting. His deeply flawed, deeply loveable characters continue to hold me hostage now the book is read and back on the shelf." - Jo Browning Wroe
"A quirky and original debut that sizzles with scintillating prose." - Bernardine Evaristo
"Muckle Flugga is an epic, a glorious and wonderful book; the language so inventive and imaginative and the soul of it so tender and true." - Salena Godden
"A lyrical, windswept novel of a lighthouse keeper and his son that is both small and big in all the good ways. A story about place, about family, about love, the forces of change and so much more. You can feel the energy and life in every sentence. Michael Pedersen is a rare writer of real passion and power and this debut is phenomenal." - Matt Haig
"A fever dream of a book, melding myth and magic to the monumental landscape of Scotland." - Ian Rankin
"To read Muckle Flugga is to stand on the edge of a sea cliff and scream into a storm. This is thrilling, beautiful and impossibly alive writing, bringing all of Michael Pedersen's ferocious and tender skills as poet and memoirist to his debut novel. There is clearly no form of writing Michael cannot master." - Chris Carse Wilson
"Michael Pederson's debut novel is exuberant, soulful and affecting. His deeply flawed, deeply loveable characters continue to hold me hostage now the book is read and back on the shelf." - Jo Browning Wroe
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