Described by her publishers as a writer, an artist's model, a trampolinist and a shellfish factory worker, Amy Liptrot's current profile comes from her autobiographical work, The Outrun, her first book. It has received critical praise and recently won the Wainwright Prize, an award sponsored by a brand of beer. This is not without irony, as The Outrun is a story of addiction and recovery, an account of dislocation from and rediscovery of origins, and an ode to the rugged Scottish Isles.
Liptrot's story is told in three parts. The book starts out frenetically with the chaos of youth, tenuous identity and addiction. Liptrot is born to Orkney newcomers, who struggle with the realities of building a life in an isolated community. They work to maintain the integrity of a family unit repeatedly buffeted by mental illness. Island life is inevitably different from the Orkney of tourist brochures and Liptrot shares with many of her contemporaries a powerful desire to leave. There is an aching sadness in the paradox of the young woman who moves away, seeking distance from her island origins yet never quite attaining a sense of belonging in her chosen refuge of London. There is desperation in her embrace of living fast, drinking heavily and careering out of control.
Liptrot returns home, fragile and bearing the fresh wounds of recovery. From here, the writing's manic fervour is replaced by a prose delivered with the slow pace and repetition of life's ebb and flow. We learn about bird watching, of island geography and the ways in which small communities synchronise with their environment. Finally, Liptrot draws an extended metaphor linking her evolving recovery with the unfinished geology of the land to which she has returned.
Written during the early part of her recovery, it is clear that the book served as powerful therapy for the author. The lengthy descriptions of landscape and the slow, rhythmic details of island life are the reflections of a tentative re-engagement with the world. As a counterpoint to the alcohol-fuelled chaos that enveloped her earlier life, the writing was ultimately too languid to hold my engagement. Perhaps this is the truest depiction of recovery: the acceptance of a slower and less dramatic life that stretches forward, long after the rapid, vibrant burn of addiction has passed.
eLetters
No eLetters have been published for this article.