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. 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 towards recovery from addiction. 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. As she spends her mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, her days tracking Orkneys wildlife, and her nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy. Unable to control her drinking, alcohol gradually took over. She moved to London and found herself in a hedonistic cycle. In an effort to break the cycles of rehabilitation and relapse, she finds solace in ritual and routine turning to the wild rhythms of the Orkney landscape. But as she grew up, she longed to leave this remote life. The book documents Liptrot’s return to her childhood home on the island, after struggling through a decade of alcoholism and drug use whilst living in London.

Approaching the land that was once home, memories of her childhood merge with the recent events that have set her on this journey.Īmy 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. 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. Winner of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2016

The outrun amy liptrot summary