The award-winning poet on his painful and funny new memoir about growing up in Dundee, how he’s a ‘vile separatist’ and why music is his first love
Don Paterson, 59, is one of our most outstanding poets, a winner of the Whitbread poetry prize, the Costa poetry award, all three Forward prizes, the TS Eliot prize (twice), and the Queen’s gold medal for poetry. He is about to publish Toy Fights, a memoir of his life up to the age of 20. The book should carry a warning: anyone wanting a quiet book should read elsewhere – it will make you laugh aloud. It describes growing up on a Dundee council estate, an unruly school life and the beginnings of his obsession with music (Paterson was later a guitarist with the Celtic-influenced, Euro-jazz band Lammas). His gloriously gnarled humour never upstages seriousness, particularly in his account of a psychiatric breakdown as an adolescent, recalled with unself-pitying precision.
Can you explain why this memoir has been years in the writing?
I lost interest in myself – and in autobiographical writing – unfortunately after the book had been commissioned [laughs]. But after my father died, three years ago, I had a sudden blast of perspective that helped; made it seem more necessary.
Toy Fights by Don Paterson is published by Faber (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
