Amidst the clamour of the Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s second day of the Winter Words Festival, Amy Liptrot almost disappears. She slipped onto the stage and quietly curled into the corner of the sofa, elegantly long limbs wrapped around themselves and hands clasped, fingers interlaced.
Jamie Jauncey is older, bolder, and louder, but soon calibrated his style to suit Liptrot’s somewhat hesitant and reserved responses. It was slightly awkward viewing, as if she really would rather have been anywhere else, even after ten years of going through what appeared like the same personal hell as she must have done so often. Talking about her book The Outrun and the film adaptation—and also the stage play, which she saw and admired but wasn’t involved in producing—must inevitably evoke memories of her years of addiction, so heartbreakingly described and played out in print and screen.
A study in contrast
She chooses her words carefully, as she should, and as her background as a journalist will have taught her back then. We learned that she has kept diaries most of her life and then took up journalism, and that her books are informed by both of those influences. We learned a little of her family and very little about those she’s worked with and whose stories are their own.
I have the impression she’s happy to talk about the process and her creative skills, but is very discreet, for her own sake and others, about her personal life. I admire that in this age of ‘full disclosure’.
Jamie Jauncey is older, bolder, and louder, but soon calibrated his style to suit Liptrot’s somewhat hesitant and reserved responses. It was slightly awkward viewing, as if she really would rather have been anywhere else…
Jauncey seemed sometimes at a loss as to how to deal with her reticence and, frankly, didn’t seem to have done his homework very thoroughly, as Liptrot had to correct him on his ‘facts’ several times. There were a lot of pregnant pauses. That said, if you listened carefully and learned to live with those pauses, there was much to be learned about Liptrot and her work and little snatches of her very private life. I still find it hard to believe it’s been ten years since her first book, The Outrun, was published. I guess, like many a phenomenon before her, Liptrot might just about have had enough of always having to hark back to the number one hit song. Time to move on.
The seaweed connection
She read an extract from The Outrun, however, choosing to stand up while she did so. What a revelation. She performed the piece, her beautiful, elegantly long fingers in motion all the while. Did she even know she was doing anything other than reading a short extract? I can’t even tell you what the reading was about now, but I was entranced. Liptrot is tall and willowy, almost ethereal, and I guess that didn’t stand her in any better stead growing up in Orkney than her ‘Englishness’ (both parents English; she was born on Orkney), which was already a cause for plenty of ‘othering’.
Going on to talk about her next book to be published, The Tangles—all about seaweed, which is her absolute passion—Liptrot really got into her stride and seemed, ironically perhaps, to be on firmer ground. She talked about snorkelling, going back to the ‘Birdie Wife’s Hoose’ on the tiny Orcadian island of Papay with her young family for a season, and how she didn’t feel she could live there permanently and bring her children up there, though they’d all enjoyed the experience while it lasted.
I can’t even tell you what the reading was about now, but I was entranced. Liptrot is tall and willowy, almost ethereal, and I guess that didn’t stand her in any better stead growing up in Orkney than her ‘Englishness’ (both parents English; she was born on Orkney), which was already a cause for plenty of ‘othering’.
It reminded me a bit of Sarah Moss’s foray to Iceland in a way. They talk about ‘the tangle of the isles’—what pulls those born on islands back ‘home’ so often—so I look forward to the seaweed tangles too.
Quiet thriving
There is more to come, going in a different direction if I understand it right. Liptrot is fifteen years sober—and counting. Time to let her just enjoy that and not always have to relive the days of addiction for the public’s pleasure, perhaps.
Though the service her honesty continues to do those still struggling should not be undervalued.
If I’ve learnt anything at Pitlochry this season so far, it’s that knowing there are others like you in the world who might have struggled but who are now thriving cannot be underestimated. Shout it out, but quietly.
Featured Image: Amy Liptrot – Credit Pitlochry Festival Theatre (Olivia Attwooll-Keith)
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