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The Fisherman
"Aidan Scott's pen is a burin and his novel is a woodcut—very strong and very dark." —Edmund White, PEN/Saul Bellow Award winning author of A Boy's Own Story & The Farewell Symphony
A young man, newly married, travels north with his wife to live in a small fishing town known as Whitby. The land is hard there. The sea is harder. In time, he is confronted with his own essential nature as well as the primordial enigmas of this new environment.
Set in the late nineteenth century, The Fisherman is written with both meticulous attention to historical detail and period-accurate dialogue reflective of that time and place.
A young man, newly married, travels north with his wife to live in a small fishing town known as Whitby. The land is hard there. The sea is harder. In time, he is confronted with his own essential nature as well as the primordial enigmas of this new environment.
Set in the late nineteenth century, The Fisherman is written with both meticulous attention to historical detail and period-accurate dialogue reflective of that time and place.
231 pages, Paperback
Published October 31, 2025
1 person is currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Aidan Scott
2 books24 followersAidan Scott is a 26-year-old author from Canberra, Australia who lives with his cat. He writes historical fiction examining folklore, mythology, the occult, and dreams. He can be reached @_art.in.focus on Instagram. The Garden is his first novel. The Fisherman, is available to purchase now through Anxiety Press. He currently working on his third.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 2, 2025
If you still haven’t read Aidan Scott’s first novel ‘The Garden’, I highly recommend sorting that out. It’s one of the most memorable debut novels I’ve read in a long time.
‘The Fisherman’ is Scott’s second novel, and not only a worthy follow up to his first, he’s outdone himself. I had a lot of praise for ‘The Garden’, but here Scott takes his gift for storytelling to the next level in a work so beautifully dark, yet brimming with life, so vividly descriptive with visceral effects.
Whitby Town, Northeastern Yorkshire, England, early 1880s, about 20 years before a famous gothic/vampire novel will put this little northern English seaside town on the literary map forever. These days a popular, quaint tourist destination, Whitby Town in the 1880s was a fishing village, governed by tides, dark storms and fog. Scott’s prose beautifully takes us back to a time when life meant hard, dangerous work, village mentality, folklore and stinking fish guts.
Scott has a gift for taking ordinary life and reflecting its dark truths back at us with macabre clarity. From the opening scene involving animal slaughter – at which some may wince, but a fact of life for all meat eaters (I must also admit that as someone who’s suffered with ichthyophobia since childhood, I had to skim a scene or two) – to later themes of self discovery and acceptance amid harsh and oppressive societal beliefs and mindsets, Scott poetically juxtaposes compassion for his characters against the brutal realities of life in this epoch and part of the world.
In both of Scott’s books, style and tone are set by his gift for storytelling, which feels fable-like, of myth, folktale and lore. There’s a great quote from Edmund White on this book’s front cover: “Aidan Scott’s pen is a burin and his novel is a woodcut – strong and very dark.”
Many reviewers of ‘The Garden’ found likenesses to McCarty’s ‘Blood Meridian’, which I think relates to his gift for beauty verses brutality, and if I were pushed to make comparisons here, solely in the hope of intriguing new readers, Scott’s descriptive prose is such that it easily creates cinematic scenes reminiscent of a Robert Eggers production. But let’s be clear, whilst comparisons are useful in enticing new readers, Scott is very much his own writer, and here in his second work, his voice is strong and fully formed.
‘The Fisherman’ coming soon in October I believe, is worth your time and I highly recommend seeking it out. I’m grateful to both Aidan and Anxiety Press for sending me this preview copy. I hope this striking and beautiful work reaches the readership it deserves.
‘The Fisherman’ is Scott’s second novel, and not only a worthy follow up to his first, he’s outdone himself. I had a lot of praise for ‘The Garden’, but here Scott takes his gift for storytelling to the next level in a work so beautifully dark, yet brimming with life, so vividly descriptive with visceral effects.
Whitby Town, Northeastern Yorkshire, England, early 1880s, about 20 years before a famous gothic/vampire novel will put this little northern English seaside town on the literary map forever. These days a popular, quaint tourist destination, Whitby Town in the 1880s was a fishing village, governed by tides, dark storms and fog. Scott’s prose beautifully takes us back to a time when life meant hard, dangerous work, village mentality, folklore and stinking fish guts.
Scott has a gift for taking ordinary life and reflecting its dark truths back at us with macabre clarity. From the opening scene involving animal slaughter – at which some may wince, but a fact of life for all meat eaters (I must also admit that as someone who’s suffered with ichthyophobia since childhood, I had to skim a scene or two) – to later themes of self discovery and acceptance amid harsh and oppressive societal beliefs and mindsets, Scott poetically juxtaposes compassion for his characters against the brutal realities of life in this epoch and part of the world.
In both of Scott’s books, style and tone are set by his gift for storytelling, which feels fable-like, of myth, folktale and lore. There’s a great quote from Edmund White on this book’s front cover: “Aidan Scott’s pen is a burin and his novel is a woodcut – strong and very dark.”
Many reviewers of ‘The Garden’ found likenesses to McCarty’s ‘Blood Meridian’, which I think relates to his gift for beauty verses brutality, and if I were pushed to make comparisons here, solely in the hope of intriguing new readers, Scott’s descriptive prose is such that it easily creates cinematic scenes reminiscent of a Robert Eggers production. But let’s be clear, whilst comparisons are useful in enticing new readers, Scott is very much his own writer, and here in his second work, his voice is strong and fully formed.
‘The Fisherman’ coming soon in October I believe, is worth your time and I highly recommend seeking it out. I’m grateful to both Aidan and Anxiety Press for sending me this preview copy. I hope this striking and beautiful work reaches the readership it deserves.
October 3, 2025
I was trying to find a good way to start this post. Wrote/rewrote etc… I’ll just speak from the heart. I am in awe of so many writers. Especially those that I’ve been able to meet in this community. I’m thankful that they write these books and I’m grateful that I receive them from these friends. I’ve spoken in the past about Aidan Scott’s first novel, The Garden. The language. The setting. The research that went into it and I was reminded of the great westerns that came before him. Aidan has written a second novel called, The Fisherman. And well, I am floored! Floored!!! It’s so good.
Like The Garden it takes place towards the end of the 19th C (1880’s) this time trading the American Southwest for Whitby, North Yorkshire, England. Aidan’s ability to whisk the reader along to these times and places is no short of masterful. His research is first rate and his attention to detail is well, so accurate (I’m assuming) that I feel like the waves were crashing upon my face while reading (I hoped they didn’t, I’m deathly afraid of the water).
There’s a page in the book that says the dialect in the novel is specific to the 1880’s in Whitby, North Yorkshire. At the end I started to talk like Rowen (and that added to my Long Island accent, oof). What I’m trying to say is that this novel is another outstanding piece of literature that will make Aidan Scott one of the world’s best storytellers. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Thank you so much for this advanced copy @_art.in.focus and thank you to @athinsliceofanxiety and Anxiety Press for continuing to push the needle of world literature in the right direction. They continue to give us masterpieces after masterpieces.
Like The Garden it takes place towards the end of the 19th C (1880’s) this time trading the American Southwest for Whitby, North Yorkshire, England. Aidan’s ability to whisk the reader along to these times and places is no short of masterful. His research is first rate and his attention to detail is well, so accurate (I’m assuming) that I feel like the waves were crashing upon my face while reading (I hoped they didn’t, I’m deathly afraid of the water).
There’s a page in the book that says the dialect in the novel is specific to the 1880’s in Whitby, North Yorkshire. At the end I started to talk like Rowen (and that added to my Long Island accent, oof). What I’m trying to say is that this novel is another outstanding piece of literature that will make Aidan Scott one of the world’s best storytellers. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Thank you so much for this advanced copy @_art.in.focus and thank you to @athinsliceofanxiety and Anxiety Press for continuing to push the needle of world literature in the right direction. They continue to give us masterpieces after masterpieces.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews