Review of The Outrun by Amy Liptrot – brutal but poignant account of life on the edge | Books

AMy Liptrot never imagined that, at the age of 30, she would return to the remote Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, where she grew up. Urging a break in her life, she had returned to her father's farm to immerse herself in the wild coast, unpredictable weather and memories of the chaotic life she had left behind in London. Over the course of her 20s, she lost jobs, a shared apartment and a boyfriend she loved because of her drinking. She eventually got help through a recovery program and, in her newfound sobriety, tried to rebuild herself by connecting with the physical world.

“The Outrun” – a film adaptation of which is in cinemas and stars Saoirse Ronan – combines memoir and natural history to offer a poignant and often brutal account of addiction. The “Outrun” of the title is the name of a strip of land between the farm and the cliffs that is too rough and weathered to cultivate, but is also an apt description of Liptrot's efforts to escape himself.

We follow the author as she helps with lambing on the farm, watches the Northern Lights from an old theater, spends a summer on Papa Westray Island in search of corncrakes, an elusive species of bird, and dances around the standing stones of Stenness. Voice actress Tracy Wiles is the narrator and captures the poetic lyricism and dark humor in Liptrot's lyrics. Whether stumbling through London in a drunken haze or rediscovering the windswept landscape of her youth, her life is one of the margins.

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