This autobiographical work about alcohol addiction sets Liptrot’s recovery against the wild landscape of Orkney (where ‘the sea has enough power to throw a seal over a fence’). Sober, she feels ‘like a fraud accepting praise…because I want to drink and feel it’s impossible that I won’t again. Yet I don’t drink, day after day. Perhaps this is just how it is, … this daily battle and my small, careful life is what the so-called miracle is.’ This private, inner struggle is moving, but this is also very much an example of nature writing – and that’s where you’ll find it in bookshops. It’s the island that is the real draw of this memoir, at once magical, turbulent and restorative.
