Book review: The Valley At The Centre Of The World, by Malachy Tallack

Malachy Tallack's first novel is serious, low-key, humane, nothing showy about it. You might call it old-fashioned, but really, or more accurately, it isn't so much old-fashioned as out of fashion. There's no fantasy or whimsy about it. No reviewer will praise it as 'ludic'. Its characters aren't the author's playthings; they are made and treated with sympathy and respect. Low-key as it is, this respect makes it a life-affirming book.

It is set in a valley on the west coast of the Shetland Mainland, a valley of crofts, less populous than it used to be. David has lived there all his life, and is steeped in its lore; his wife, Mary, came from Edinburgh, and made her home happily in the valley. He looks after his sheep, but for years he worked in the oil-terminal too, and Mary was a primary school teacher. Nobody makes a living from crofting.It may be a good life, but neither David nor the author is sentimental about it. Both know it is hard. One of David and Mary’s daughters lives, married with children, in Lerwick, the other, Emma, came to a house in the valley with her boyfriend Sandy, but they have now parted and Emma has left. But Sandy has stayed. David wants him to remain and offers him the croft he has just inherited from the valley’s recently deceased oldest inhabitant, Maggie. For Sandy, who works part-time as a taxi-driver, it’s a chance to put down roots; he has had too little sense of belonging since his mother walked out of their home when he was seven.

The other main character, Alice, is an incomer, also wounded. A successful writer of crime novels, she came to the valley after her husband’s death. She is no longer writing crime.Instead she has been compiling – slowly – material for a description of the valley – its past, its flora and fauna, and its way of life today. Perhaps it can be in some way held together by the life-story of old Maggie.