In a world where most of us spend half our lives staring at a screen – if you want a real fright forget rollercoasters and horror movies and look up how many hours you’ve spent on your phone this week – the call of the wild has become harder to hear, drowned out by a chorus of notification pings and cat videos. Yet for Amy Liptrot, author of the bestselling addiction memoir The Outrun, the yearning for the natural world, and a more authentic way of living within it, is as loud and irrepressible as ever.
Her latest work The Instant sees her leave the Scottish Islands for Berlin, spending her days scouring the city for goshawks and her nights tracking raccoon trails and the trajectory of the moon. Her prose is lyrical and lonely. She talks of how the moon holds onto the earth as they drift through space together, all the while longing for someone to similarly anchor herself to. Her attempts at online dating expertly outline the contradiction of an age in which communication has never been easier, nor true connection more difficult.
An unexpected love affair streaks through the narrative like a comet, blistering in its intensity and leaving only darkness in its wake. A beautiful, searching account of a woman’s quest for fulfilment, this is one instant that will linger long in the memory.
The Instant, Amy Liptrot (Canongate)
Price: £12.99 Info: here
words RACHEL REES
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