Amy Liptrot’s first book, The Outrun, chronicled her retreat from London and alcoholism to the islands around Orkney, where she had grown up on a cliffside farm. The book became a prizewinning bestseller, and her new essayistic memoir, The Instant, picks up where it left off, finding Liptrot in her mid-30s, sober, strong and single.
It’s acute lonesomeness that drives her back to the mainland and from there to Berlin. She’s seeking the juvenescence that she’s started to sense is slipping through her fingers, looking for excuses to shed layers and put on party dresses again. What she really wants is a boyfriend. “I was embarrassed by my conventional desires,” she admits. “I had hoped I was more resourceful and interesting than to want a boyfriend.”
