Since I was a kid and first read, Knight of the Cross, I’ve been fascinated by the Vikings. Not coincidentally, the surname Judd derives from Jutland Vikings who settled in England after raping and pillaging the island. In later years that lead to learning about Iceland and–via this great tv series–-Orkney: Britain’s Ancient Capital to the Scottish Isles and, from Vera, to the Jimmy Perez detective series set on Shetland. So, when a review of Malachy Tallack’s latest novel mentioned that he was a Shetlander I naturally had to check him out.

He’s a fascinating character who not only writes novels and memoirs but edits publications and writes and plays music, some of which accompanies his texts. You can find links to much of his social media below.

I’ll have to look for his books now, but this one short story featuring characters from an earlier book is available on-line at his own webpage and it reminded me of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying which I happened to be reading:

The four of them had worked together many times, on one or other of their crofts. Working together was almost indivisible, for them, from working. Since David was a boy he’d been part of this group—only acting the role at first, doing just what he was told. He had learned early on to keep the others entertained. They were less likely to tire of him that way, or to send him home. So he gathered stories to share, embellished and repeated them. It was a habit he had not left behind, though his strength, these days, was as valuable to the others as his company.

This was the first time, though, that David had dug a grave. When his grandfather died, six years before, he was too young, too short, to be of use; and the last burial he’d attended—the oldest of his aunts—had been in town, where the family’s shovels weren’t required. The County had a gravedigger here in Treswick too, who was meant to do this job, no matter whose bones needed buried. But Willie was old-fashioned. He saw this as a matter of propriety. Anyone who belonged to this place, he’d said, should be laid to rest by neighbours and kin. And though she hadn’t lived there for more than fifty years, Elizabeth Hughson had asked, in her final days, to be buried in this kirkyard. So Willie had given the gravedigger a half-bottle, and told him he wouldn’t be needed.

As in the Faulkner novel, the draw here is how fiercely the characters identify with a place, their place. It’s incredibly moving.

(Reviewed:31-Dec-24)

Grade: (A+) Orrin C. Judd

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Malachy Tallack Links:

    -AUTHOR SITE: MaachyTallack.com
    -SUBSTACK: For a Song
    -AUTHOR MUSIC SITE: Malachy Tallack
    -WIKIPEDIA: Malachy Tallack
    -AUTHOR PAGE: Malachy Tallack (Simon & Schuster)
    -ENTRY: Malachy Tallack (Royal Literary Fund)
    -DISCOGRAPHY: Malachy Tallack (Spotify)
    -DISCOGRAPHY: Malacy Tallack (Bandcamp)
    -TWITTER: @malachytallack
    -VIDEO CHANNEL: Malachy Tallack (You Tube)
    -INSTAGRAM: Malachy Tallack
    -DISCOGRAPHY: Malachy Tallack (SoundCloud)
    -ENTRY: Malachy Tallack (Scottish Book Trust)
    -BLOG: Malachy Tallack (New Statesman)
    -INDEX: Malachy Tallack (BookBrowse)
    -INDEX: Malachy Tallack (Shetland Times)
    -INDEX: Malachy Tallack (LitHub)
    -INDEX: "Tallack, Malachy, author" (Internet Archive)
    -INDEX: Malachy Tallack (New Statesman)
    -PODCAST: 1#7 Malachy Tallack: the Shetland wordsmith: “Every culture, every place is shaped by the landscape in which they live.” (Mountain Air, 4/13/21)
    -PODCAST: Malachy Tallack: Malachy Tallack speaks with Caroline Sanderson about growing up in Shetland, and the role of place in his fiction and non-fiction writing. (RLF, 8 June, 2023)
    -PODCAST: Malachy Tallack - That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz (Scots Whay Hae!, 10/22/24)
    -PODCAST: Musician and novelist Malachy Tallack, Cities of Literature and Textile Art (BBC : Front Row, 10/23/24)
    -RADIO PROGRAM: Malachy Tallack - Sixty Degrees North Omnibus (BBC Radio 4, 8 Jan 2017)
    -RADIO PROGRAM: Malachy Tallack: That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz: Anna presents the best of folk and roots including a live interview with Shetland author and singer-songwriter Malachy Tallack. (BBC: Travelling Folk)
    -RADIO SHOW: Malachy Tallack: around the world in search of home (ABC: Conversations, 27 Feb 2017)


    -STORY: The Burial (Malachy Tallack, 2001, Extra Teeth)
    -AUDIO STORY: The Invention of Abandonment: A new short story by Malachy Tallack. Midway through a familiar journey on an unremarkable day events take a turn, and a man is left questioning everything. (Read by Andy Clark, BBC Radio 4: Short Works)
    -ESSAY: A Brief History of Phantom Islands: Why Did Oceangoing Explorers Make Up So Much Stuff? (Malachy Tallack, November 20, 2017, LitHub)
    -ESSAY: Imagine a Country . . . (Malachy Tallack, First published in Imagine a Country, ed. Val McDermid & Jo Sharp)
    -ESSAY: A Song of Home (Malachy Tallack, 29th September 2019, Caught by the River)
    -ESSAY: What We Speak About When We Speak About Solastalgia (Malachy Tallack, First published in Antlers of Water, ed. Kathleen Jamie)
    -ESSAY: The Heart of Beyond (Malachy Tallack, Boundless)
    -ESSAY: The faraway gaze: resisting 'remoteness' in art (Malachy Tallack, 8/25/21, Art UK)
    -ARTICLE: Malachy Tallack releases album to accompany new novel (The National, 15th September)
    -EXCERPT: Islands of Life and Death (Malachy Tallack, from The Un-Discovered Islants)
    -EXCERPT: Fishing the Magical Lochs of Shetland Island (Daily Beast)
    -ESSAY: So Long As We Can Imagine Better, We Can Make Better (Malachy Tallack, March 31, 2014, Imagine a Better Scotland)
    -ESSAY : Farewell from Fair Isle: Malachy Tallack's last blog from Britain's remotest place reflects on a very different way of living (Malachy Tallack, 28 January 2008, New Statesman)
    -PROFILE: Malachy Tallack on writing, travel and isolation (David Robinson, 21st Aug 2015, The Scotsman)
    -PROFILE: Malachy Tallack: Intelligent and ultimately uplifting. Malachy Tallack is one to watch out for. (Barbara Henderson, 8 May 2016, The Wee Review)
    -INTERVIEW: MALACHY TALLACK on distance and difference between life and song. (Alistair Braidwood, 01/11/2024, Snack)
    -INTERVIEW: Malachy Tallack in conversation about our symbiosis with nature: “Throughout my life I have been trying to retrieve something of that early encounter with wonder, that overwhelming feeling of excitement, of discovery, of possibility, of awe” (Tom Tivnan, 2/24/22, The Bookseller)
    - PROFILE: Tallack’s talent on show (Shetland Times, June 6, 2009)
    -PROFILE: Malachy Tallack – The Shetland Author, Musician, and Storyteller Making Waves in 2024 with "That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz" and His Unique Blend of Literature and Music (ProtectNFM, December 28, 2024)
    -INTERVIEW: The Book … According to Malachy Tallack (Books from Scotland, September 2024)
    -INTERVIEW: Author Malachy Tallack dives into the world of 'un-discovered islands': Some of these 'un-discovered islands' are products of myth and legend like the famous Atlantis. Others have more unexpected origins like fraud. And a few actually were once considered real by scientists and geographers as recently as this decade. (Randy Dotinga, Nov. 07, 2017, CS Monitor)
    -INTERVIEW: Seven questions with Wordplay festival curator Malachy Tallack (Promote Shetland, September 14th 2021)
    -PROFILE: ‘The global web of life with a valley at the centre’ (Shetland News, 11 November 2018)
    -
    -
    -REVIEW ARCHIVE: Malachy Tallack (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack (Christopher Shrimpton, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz (Allan Massie, The Scotsman)
    -REVIEW: of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz (Alistair Braidwood, The Skinny)
    -REVIEW: of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz (Doug Johnstone, Big Issue)
    -REVIEW: of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz (Susan Osborne, a life in books)
    -REVIEW: of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz (Phil Shanklin, reviewsrevues)
    -REVIEW: of Illuminated by Water, by Malachy Tallack (Allan Massie, The Scotsman)
    -REVIEW: of Illuminated by Water (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Illuminated by Water (Leonard Schoenberger, The Wading List)
    -REVIEW: of Illuminated by Water (Mark Wormald, TLS)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley at the Centre of the World by Malachy Tallack (Ian Sansom, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley at the Centre of the World (The Scotsman)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley at the Centre of the World (Benjamin Myers, New Statesman)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley at the Centre of the World (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley at the Centre of the World (The Resident Judge of Port Phillip)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley at the Centre of the World (David Robinson, Books from Scotland)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley at the Centre of the World (Bookmunch)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley at the Centre of the World (Tony Michaels, The Wee Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley at the Centre of the World (Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald)
    -REVIEW: of Undiscovered Islands, by Malachy Tallack (The Scotsman)
    -REVIEW: of The Undiscovered Islands (Rebecca Foster, Bookish Beck)
    -REVIEW: of The Undiscovered Islands (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of The Undiscovered Islands (Stuart Kelly, The Spectator)
    -REVIEW: of The Undiscovered Islands (Fiona Capp, Sydney Morning Herald)
    -REVIEW: of The Undiscovered Islands (Ed O’Loughlin, TLS)
    -REVIEW: of The Undiscovered Islands (Genevieve Valentine, NPR)
    -REVIEW: of 60 Degrees North by Malachy Tallack (Roger Cox, The Scotsman)
    -REVIEW: of 60 Degrees North (Will Self, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of 60 Degrees North (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of 60 Degrees North (Stuart Kelly, TLS)
    -REVIEW: of 60 Degrees North (Doug Johnstone, Big Issue)
    -REVIEW: of 60 Degrees North (BookBrowse)
    -REVIEW: of 60 Degrees North (Adam Thorpe, Resurgence)
    -REVIEW: of 60 Degrees North (Andreas Moser, The Happy Hermit)
    -REVIEW: of 60 Degrees North (Jo Kirk, Nailed)
    -ALBUM REVIEW: of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz (Mike Davies, KLOF)

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