Nature Writing or Recovery Memoir: The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

Wojciech Klepuszewski

doi:10.31648/pl.10745

Published: 2025-10-30

No. 13 (2025)

Nature Writing or Recovery Memoir: The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

Wojciech Klepuszewski

Papers in Literature

Section: Views of women's worlds

https://doi.org/10.31648/pl.10745

Abstract

This article examines The Outrun (2016), Amy Liptrot’s distinctive recovery memoir, which stands out amid the proliferation of similar works published in recent years. Most literary critics have focused on the memoir’s setting and, consequently, categorised the book as nature writing, largely overlooking its engagement with recovery. The principal aim of this article is to view The Outrun, first and foremost, as a literary record of confronting addiction and discovering ways to live in sobriety. Particular attention is given to Liptrot’s symbolic and metaphorical use of the natural world as a means of documenting her recovery.

Keywords:

alcoholism, sobriety, memoir, nature, autobiographism

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Klepuszewski, W. (2025). Nature Writing or Recovery Memoir: The Outrun by Amy Liptrot. Papers in Literature, (13), 175–186. https://doi.org/10.31648/pl.10745

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