Amy loses friends, jobs, boyfriends and flats, and narrowly escapes being attacked. She spends her nights roaming the capital, finding any opportunity to get drunk, seeking oblivion. And as 10 years go by and friends leave, it is alcohol that becomes her reliable constant. At 18, Amy escapes to London to find excitement: life blurs into raves, relationships and alcohol. They chose her, and slowly pulled her from a life that began to consume her in London: “The fresh air, the wind, was where I came from and, although there were buildings all around, the open landscapes of Orkney were still inside me and I was somehow always cycling to a hidden horizon.”Īmy grew up on a farm in Orkney, and the title of the book refers to a stretch of land on the farm that is wild and weather-beaten. These things happened, but she was not seeking them. The list acts as a mysterious transition into Amy’s world on Orkney.Īmy grew up in the Orkney Isles, but she had no romantic notions of returning to explore its wilderness, or find meaning in nature. These are words used only in Orkney: ‘Grimlins’ means midsummer night skies ‘Hillyans’ means mythical hill folk ‘spoots’ means razor clams and, my favourite, the ‘Merry Dancers’, means the Northern Lights. The words in the glossary at the front of Amy Liptrot’s book, The Outrun, were delicious enough that I read them out loud.
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