Boy Friends: A Memoir of Joy, Grief and Male Friendship

(Paperback, Main)

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n intimate and original memoir of love, grief and male friendship by one of Scotland's An intimate and original memoir of love, grief and male friendship by one of Scotland's brightest young talents.
'As perfect a portrait of friendship as I've ever read.' - STEPHEN FRY


'Lucid, lyrical, loaded . . . A love letter to friendship.' - JACKIE KAY


'A lovely book: bright and heartfelt, funny and refreshing.' - ANDREW O'HAGAN


'A beautiful, moving, life-affirming book.' -IAN RANKIN


Friendships might just be the greatest love affairs of our lives . . .



In 2018 poet and author Michael Pedersen lost a cherished friend, Scott Hutchison, soon after their collective voyage into the landscape of the Scottish Highlands. Just weeks later, Michael began to write to him. As he confronts the bewildering process of grief, what starts as a love letter to one magical, coruscating human soon becomes a paean to all the gorgeous male friendships that have transformed his life.


'Boy Friends sees Pedersen illuminate these companions with a poet's eye, a comedian's timing - and a lover's care.' - OBSERVER


'Pedersen is an enthralling narrator and his prose is poetic, written with enough electricity that it seems to jolt off the page. It is riotously funny . . . Boy Friends opens up conversations about vulnerable subjects: the brunt of suicide, the circumstances of certain types of Scottish masculinity and where friendships fit into that.' -SUNDAY TIMES

Reviews

"Enchanting and astonishingly compelling . . . A friend is a masterpiece of nature, Emerson said -- and this book is as perfect a portrait of that natural masterpiece as I have ever read." -- STEPHEN FRY

"A beautiful, moving, life-affirming book about a beautiful, moving, life-affirming friendship." -- IAN RANKIN

"A tender, funny rebuttal to toxic masculinity." -- VAL MCDERMID

"The Scottish poet's memoir reflects touchingly on male friendship and masculinity . . . Pedersen pays tender tribute to his late pal." -- Guardian

Author Bio

Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet and author. He has published two successful chapbooks and an acclaimed debut collection Play With Me. His second collection, Oyster, was published in 2017 and was illustrated by and performed as a live show with Frightened Rabbit's Scott Hutchinson. Pedersen has been named a Canongate Future 40; was a finalist in the 2018 Writer of the Year at The Herald Scottish Culture Awards; was awarded the 2014 John Mather Trust Rising Star of Literature Award; and won the 2015 Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. Pedersen also co-founded Neu! Reekie!, a prize-winning arts collective known for producing cutting edge shows around the world.