Reviewed by Jeff Taylor
by Amy Liptrot (Canongate Books: 2016)
I noticed Amy Liptrot’s memoir The Outrun when it was first published. The author had a particularly unusual name and the book had a link with Orkney, a place I’ve visited several times. However I didn’t read it, thinking maybe that it was just another book describing how place had inspired the author’s writing, which I’d probably had my fill of at the time.
It was only when I saw the trailer for the film of the book in September last year, and read a review in The Guardian newspaper*, that I realised what I had missed.
After studying English Literature as an undergraduate and postgraduate in Edinburgh, the author drifts into alcoholism, during ten years living in London. Eventually, after a period of non-residential rehab, she moves back to Orkney, the place of her birth, where she takes her first steps to recovery. With difficulty, she reconnects with her parents who are disconnected from each other, following a divorce and the sale of their farmhouse. Her father is inclined to bipolar episodes and has a reliance on alcohol during periods of less intense anxiety, but he still farms while living in a caravan. The memoir is named after a piece of grazing land on her father’s farm. In contrast, her mother lives in a bungalow in Kirkwall and is disposed towards evangelical Christianity.
The first third of the book is set mostly in London and the author describes in remarkably honest detail the various alcohol-fuelled events which she did well to survive. She doesn’t stand back from describing the negative consequences of her drinking on her working life and on her romantic and familial relationships. Graduation from three months of local authority backed non-residential rehab is a turning point for Amy, but she makes it clear that many who go this route do not graduate or, if they do, they often relapse.
At this point in The Outrun Amy writes, ‘I was coming around to the idea that alcoholism is a form of mental illness, rather than just a habit or lack of control. Although I knew that everything good happening in my life - regaining the trust of my family, who’d seen me promise and fail to change many times, possibilities of new work, a slight confident step - was reliant on me staying sober’. Hopefully the memoir, and the film, will change many people’s views about friends, relations and colleagues who suffer from alcohol addiction, as well as those they might come across beyond their own circle.
On her return to Orkney Amy becomes involved in tracking the island’s wildlife and immerses herself in the natural and human history of various islands. Her description of this time, the bulk of the book, although tinged with references to her continuing sobriety, is a compelling and exhilarating read.
The film, part scripted by Amy, mostly follows the memoir but occasionally departs from the book for dramatic effect. One such departure is where Amy’s character, called Rona, meets an Orkney shopkeeper who tells her that he has been sober for twelve years but warns it ‘never gets any easier, just less hard’. I would heartily recommend the film, which is now streaming, but make sure you read the book first.
The Instant, a sequel to The Outrun, set in Berlin and Orkney, was published by Canongate books in 2022.
Amy now lives in North Yorkshire and is married with two young children. After twelve years of sobriety, she is well into her recovery. Her next book is apparently going to be about seaweed!
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