Book review
Amy Liptrot received the Wainwright Prize and the PEN Ackerley Prize for this non-fiction work that tells of her shifting relationship with the Orkney Islands, where she grew up and traces her recovery from alcoholism; from London and a hedonistic lifestyle as a music journalist, to a six month sojourn on remote island, Papay, and two years sober.
The book struck chords with me, having also grown up by the sea and then spent several years in London as a writer and more than my fair share of nights (and days) in alcohol-fused haze, before choosing a sober life and returning to live by the coast and closer to nature. But Liptrot steers clear of the high drama that you might expect of a tale of redemption from addiction. Instead, her prose is sparse and simple, weaving observations born of growing self-awareness, with descriptions of the wilds and culture of Orkney and insights into flora, fauna and expansive skies.
What I particularly enjoyed about this book was the intimacy I felt with the writer. Liptrot describes her innermost anxieties about the loss of a relationship and sketches some of the key moments in family history that have shaped her, which builds a connection and a context; a landscape for her perspective on nature. But moments that feel most special are those where she loses her sense of self and becomes submerged in her environment. There’s a sense of total absorption, when she is searching for corncrakes, rare birds found only on the western isles and Orkney in the UK, and finds herself in a kind of confusion, where place disappears and “dusk blends into dawn”. There’s the night-time stargazing, when she takes a duvet into the garden to watch a meteor shower, the midnight group sea-swimming on the Summer Solstice and the seaweed and kelp “forest”, discovered through snorkelling, where time, sound and scale are all distorted.
We also learn unexpected details about farm and wildlife, that balance the awe and wonder with the visceral realities of life and death. During lambing season, a sheep is identified as a “bad mother” after sitting on her triplets, crushing them to death. A meditative walk around abandoned island, Copinsay, is interrupted by disturbed seabirds divebombing the intruder and vomiting on her path. And a description of a washed-up whale carcass, internal organs scattered among rocks and debris, serves for an illuminating look at the evolving relationship between humans and whales on the islands and beyond.
The book ends, fittingly, with a chapter on the role of the Orkney islands in providing sources of renewable energy for the UK. Being possessed of a wealth of natural resource in the forms of wind and strong sea currents, Orkney is now scattered with wind turbines and surrounded by submerged and floating devices to harness tidal power. But the future success of these technologies on the Orkneys seems uncertain, as the very strength of the resources has been their undoing time and again, with huge pieces of metal washing up on shore and residents concerned about the likelihood of the turbines succumbing to the salty atmosphere, rusting and crumbling where they stand.
The Outrun feels like an escape from the un-reality of urban modern life and a reminder of the fragility and power of both nature and humanity. By the end of the book, Liptrot is rooted in a new sense of purpose, in embracing and connecting with nature and walking into a new chapter as a writer to watch.
You can follow Liptrot on Twitter and listen to her series The New Anatomy of Melancholy on Radio 4.
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