A searingly honest and poignant memoir
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The Blurb:
When Amy Liptrot returns to Orkney after more than a decade away, she is drawn back to the Outrun on the sheep farm where she grew up. Approaching the land that was once home, memories of her childhood merge with the recent events that have set her on this journey.
Amy was shaped by the cycle of the seasons, birth and death on the farm, and her father’s mental illness, which were as much a part of her childhood as the wild, carefree existence on Orkney. But as she grew up, she longed to leave this remote life. She moved to London and found herself in a hedonistic cycle. Unable to control her drinking, alcohol gradually took over. Now thirty, she finds herself washed up back home on Orkney, standing unstable at the cliff edge, trying to come to terms with what happened to her in London.
Spending early mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, the days tracking Orkney’s wildlife—puffins nesting on sea stacks, arctic terns swooping close enough to feel their wings—and nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy slowly makes the journey toward recovery from addiction.
The Outrun is a beautiful, inspiring book about living on the edge, about the pull between island and city, and about the ability of the sea, the land, the wind, and the moon to restore life and renew hope
The Review
For Christmas I was gifted my first book subscription box (Reading in Heels...more about them below) - once a month I get a beautiful paperback, plus some other gifts, straight through my letterbox. I gather it's usually mainly fiction, but for my first box we were treated to a memoir. Not my usual genre of choice, but I love to try something different -so I wasn't put off.
In this memoir, the author tells a poignant story - of growing up with a father with mental health problems, her own spiralling alcohol addiction and her painful recovery, during which she returned from London, to the remote landscape of the Orkney islands. The writing was both beautiful and evocative, especially when it came to her reminiscing on her own experiences and describing her awful demise whilst in the grips of her alcoholism.
The story is not told in a linear fashion, and whilst this is not a problem for me, it did sometimes become confusing whether we were revisiting a time during her addiction or whether she was talking about part of her recovery. As you would expect from a memoir, there is an awful lot of self reflection and the author uses a lot of inspiration form the landscape around her to compare to her recovering mental state.
The description of the landscapes around these islands was both intimidating and alluring - in some ways it did make me yearn to visit them myself and in others, they seemed scarily barren and isolated. There is quite a lot of details about the flora and fauna that is native to these islands and for me that was nowhere near as interesting as the story of her recovery. I completely understand that it was complementary to her rehabilitation; that engaging with the landscape around her was one of the things that eventually brought her some comfort, but the passages which gave minute detail about the history and species on the islands were far less interesting to me. But it was beautifully and delicately crafted together and she is clearly a very talented writer.
This is a story that is both painful and downright brave at times. The author is searingly honest about her experiences and the types of dangerous situation her addiction led her into. She talks about some of the possible reasons for her addiction and peppers it with some beautifully humorous moments (her recounting of the time spent in rehab with other addicts had some especially poignant yet comical moments). It is incredibly introspective, to the point of perhaps becoming a bit indulgent, but then that is to be expected on a book that reflects on your own personal experience. Considering this is not a genre I normally gravitate to, I was pleasantly surprised and glad to have been offered a window into such a personal and painful time in her life.
I thought I would take this moment just to mention how great my Reading in Heels subscription has been so far. The packaging is really beautiful, and the handpicked gifts are genuinely worthwhile beauty & lifestyle treats. For £10 a box (+p&p) you can't really go wrong and it makes a really lovely present for the Book lover in your life!