Book Review: ‘Boy Friends’ by Michael Pedersen

Ricky Ross, Michael Pedersen and Michael Mullen at ‘Boy Friends’ Book Launch. Picture Source: Donald Erskine

Michael Pedersen gifted the labour of love that is ‘Boy Friends’ - his homage and love letter to male friendship – to the world last month. City Live attended the book launch event in Glasgow to hear more from the author on his new release.

Boy Friends is written in part as a letter to Pedersen’s late, close friend Scott Hutchison, known as the lead singer and songwriter in the Scottish band, Frightened Rabbit. Pedersen also goes on to explore his other seminal male friendships that he has also lost in some way over the years: some out of choice and necessity, others outwith his control.

The Edinburgh-born writer, known for his poetry and co-founding Neu! Reekie!, has taken his first foray into prose almost by accident, Pedersen explained: “I was consumed by still wanting to talk to Scott. He left us in May, I entered a writing retreat to The Curfew Tower in Northern Ireland in July and the book just happened, it was never intended to be this book.”

Pedersen went on to explain how he has pages of ‘by-product’ poems which were inevitable for someone as proficient with words as he. The prose outcome of this retreat deserves to be its own opus though, it’s a real tour de force of expression.

Navigating emotion is an enormous task, never mind adding the pressures of toxic masculinity into the mix AND then adding discussing close male friendships on top. Pedersen masterfully storms the gates of this untouchable area of discussion, you can feel his heart bleeding onto the page. Being able to not only deal with the grief of losing such a close friend, but to be able to pour that into a work which will undoubtedly help innumerable amounts of people is a medal-worthy achievement in itself.

In taking inspiration from Hutchison, there is a musicality to the way that Pedersen writes, his sentences are his symphonies - each word a new note. He also weaves together the morals of the book seamlessly, ebbing and flowing like verses in song without ever leaving the reader lost. With a vocabulary as mammoth as he possess it does leave you relying on google for the odd word here or there, a very welcome literary lesson.

As we are introduced to each friendship and carried on the journey, we are also transported through time. Starting in Pedersen’s present day, we move to his early life and onwards – the journey culminating at the ominous, forlorn conclusion that is the time around Scott’s passing. Pedersen manages to give detail and emote without being overbearing in this tale and for the most part, it is a joyous read - pure catharsis distilled down.

Book Cover of ‘Boy Friends ‘ by Michael Pedersen

Pedersen opens Boy Friends by asking the reader: “Ever feel like you were fated to be friends with someone?” Well, this book is one of those that you feel like you were fated to read. In a short 223 pages, that is easily a one-sit read (if your emotions can take it), he navigates the complex and gives meaning to the mundane. A book of this prominence does not always come packaged with such clarity.

It would be an injustice to them to divulge any finer details of this emotional bildungsroman, those I will leave to the book to tell. This is a must-read book, especially for the stolid men who find it hard to express what Pedersen does so seamlessly on each page. It will make you look inward and outward to your own relationships, if we’re lucky we can relate to the bonds described within these pages. If we’re luckier still, we might find the courage to express, as eloquently as Pedersen, how we feel about those we love.

P.S. Go read this book.

P.P.S Go tell yer pals you love them.

★★★★★ - As musical as its muse, this book shows friendships for the romantic rollicks they are. Both life-affirming and stigma-shaming, a must-read.