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A review by joecam79
The Valley at the Centre of the World by Malachy Tallack
4.0
At the age of ten, Malachy Tallack moved to Shetland with his family. Now an award-winning singer-songwriter, journalist and author, he has written extensively about life in these remote islands. Tallack has also published two travel books : [b:Sixty Degrees North: Around the World in Search of Home|26889749|Sixty Degrees North Around the World in Search of Home|Malachy Tallack|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1444712924s/26889749.jpg|45285153], an exploration of lands along the sixtieth parallel (which also crosses through the Shetland Isles) and [b:The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes|30170971|The Un-Discovered Islands An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes|Malachy Tallack|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1463001773s/30170971.jpg|50610951], about mythical islands once believed to be real. Valley at the Centre of the World is his first novel. Set in Shetland, it is a work of fiction but one shaped by the reality that Tallack knows so well.
Tallack emphasizes the sense of isolation by making his setting doubly insular – his protagonists are not only islanders, but the inhabitants of a valley distant from the comparative bustle of Lerwick. There’s old crofter David and his wife Mary. There’s Sandy – their daughter Emma’s ex-partner – who has stayed on in Shetland even as Emma has gone south to mainland Scotland. There’s crime-writer Alice, who has retired to this distant part of the world after prematurely losing her husband to cancer. There’s Ryan and Jo, a young couple who move in as tenants in one of the cottages owned by David. There’s Terry, battling the demons of alcoholism and family breakdown. And then there’s the memory of Maggie, once the valley’s oldest inhabitant, still inspiring affection and respect from beyond the grave.
In its portrayal of an isolated community and its handling of themes of identity and belonging, Valley at the Centre of the World reminded me of another novel I read recently – Ray Jacobsen’s [b:The Unseen|31936168|The Unseen|Roy Jacobsen|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1473520085s/31936168.jpg|25879684] which is set in a remote Norwegian island. There is also a similarity in the approach to dialogue, the thick dialect of the Shetland Isles (David’s in particular) rendered phonetically to give readers a feel for its sound. Yet the novels are also very different. Jacobsen’s is more overtly (self-consciously?) literary in style, its purposely vague temporal setting giving the novel a timeless, fable-like feel. On the other hand, Tallack strives for authenticity, to the point of having one of his characters (Alice) work on a history of the valley – a convenient way of putting across information about the island without appearing artificial or pedantic.
Tallack’s novel is also clearly rooted in the present and expresses the challenges faced by young (and not-so-young) people who take the plunge and make a distant island the centre of their world. Indeed, the same care taken in the portrayal of the natural setting is dedicated to the development of character – we are given enough of the protagonists’ backstory to turn them into flesh-and-blood figures. And this is one of the book’s strong points – although it is a novel in which not much happens by way of plot, the dynamics between the different characters are strangely beguiling and by the end of the book, the protagonists feel like old friends.
Tallack emphasizes the sense of isolation by making his setting doubly insular – his protagonists are not only islanders, but the inhabitants of a valley distant from the comparative bustle of Lerwick. There’s old crofter David and his wife Mary. There’s Sandy – their daughter Emma’s ex-partner – who has stayed on in Shetland even as Emma has gone south to mainland Scotland. There’s crime-writer Alice, who has retired to this distant part of the world after prematurely losing her husband to cancer. There’s Ryan and Jo, a young couple who move in as tenants in one of the cottages owned by David. There’s Terry, battling the demons of alcoholism and family breakdown. And then there’s the memory of Maggie, once the valley’s oldest inhabitant, still inspiring affection and respect from beyond the grave.
In its portrayal of an isolated community and its handling of themes of identity and belonging, Valley at the Centre of the World reminded me of another novel I read recently – Ray Jacobsen’s [b:The Unseen|31936168|The Unseen|Roy Jacobsen|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1473520085s/31936168.jpg|25879684] which is set in a remote Norwegian island. There is also a similarity in the approach to dialogue, the thick dialect of the Shetland Isles (David’s in particular) rendered phonetically to give readers a feel for its sound. Yet the novels are also very different. Jacobsen’s is more overtly (self-consciously?) literary in style, its purposely vague temporal setting giving the novel a timeless, fable-like feel. On the other hand, Tallack strives for authenticity, to the point of having one of his characters (Alice) work on a history of the valley – a convenient way of putting across information about the island without appearing artificial or pedantic.
Tallack’s novel is also clearly rooted in the present and expresses the challenges faced by young (and not-so-young) people who take the plunge and make a distant island the centre of their world. Indeed, the same care taken in the portrayal of the natural setting is dedicated to the development of character – we are given enough of the protagonists’ backstory to turn them into flesh-and-blood figures. And this is one of the book’s strong points – although it is a novel in which not much happens by way of plot, the dynamics between the different characters are strangely beguiling and by the end of the book, the protagonists feel like old friends.