May 23, 2022
Poet Pedersen (Oyster) braids a history of the male relationships in his life into a lyrical tribute to his close friend, artistic collaborator, and founding member of the Scottish indie band Frightened Rabbit, Scott Hutchinson, who died by suicide in 2018. Composed as a letter to Hutchinson—who goes unnamed in the book—Pedersen’s narration looks back at his working-class childhood in Edinburgh, university years, and short stint as a lawyer, while meditating on the friendships he formed and lost: “Each friendship was a love affair, yet one cut short and fractured—a vessel lost to a squall with a hull full of fish.” Yet none of these relationships would compare to the one he shared with Hutchinson, a six-year-long friendship that ended shortly after a trip they took together though the Scottish Highlands (Hutchinson took his life a week before the two were supposed to reunite). As Pedersen struggles to memorialize his friend’s death among the “beastly bite of grief,” he finds humor and gratitude in his memories, constructing from them a passionate ode to companionship: “It was like a combination of déjà vu, finding an old love letter, and being gifted a hand-knitted cardigan from a friend no-one knew could knit. It grew like vines—leafed, flowered, fruited.” Despite its plaintive origins, this brims with beauty and love.
August 1, 2022
Heartache fuels a young Scotsman's poetry. Pedersen wrote this book in memory of Scott Hutchison, whose friendship was "an express train" halted by Hutchison's suicide in 2018, at age 36. Hutchison, the frontman for the Scottish indie band Frightened Rabbit, illustrated Pedersen's 2017 poetry collection, Oyster. After the tragedy, the author "needed a way to keep talking to you," and so wrote his memoir entirely in second-person address, recalling their shared adventures. From there, the project "grew into a celebration of many friendships, perhaps all friendship." Pedersen's closeness with childhood friend Daniel prompted rumors that they were "poofs," but he "felt like my first love in many respects." About his fellow law student David Sparrow: "Mostly kind but sometimes cruel, he thumbed me like a trashy magazine, I read him like a clever comic." Partners in a "substance-addled romp," Pedersen and his buddy Rowley "would love each other publicly, kiss frequently, share beds, tears and dreams." Jake, another friend, facilitated the author's venture into and out of heroin addiction. Even though he catalogs these "most seminal friendships [that are] in some way lost to me," the heart of the narrative remains his relationship with Hutchison. This examination into "male grief" is flavored by the author's clear love of language, and comprehending his ruminations requires negotiating Scottish idioms--some of them annotated, though not all. For example: "I was labelled a rough yin rather than softie, a complete turn turtle in the expectation others might have of me"; "I unfankled like an old man napping on a park bench." Ultimately, Pedersen offers an extended reverie on the dynamics of male friendship, an underexplored literary landscape. He reminds us that "the boldest love alive in The Lord of the Rings is the friendship between Frodo and Sam." What begins as an elegy for Hutchison becomes a "celebration of your life rather than a lament of your death." A consistently intimate and often moving memoir of friendship.
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