‘Far Inland is a shamanic story for our times. If story tells us of our past and vision
speaks to the future, Peter Urpeth has combined both in this delightful work.’
– Alastair McIntosh, author of Soil and fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology
‘The lonely terror of psychic disintegration and explosions of renewal are vividly
and brilliantly conveyed here . . . full of authentic evocation.’
– Tom Lowenstein, author of Ancient Land, Sacred Whale (Bloomsbury)
Raised in the Outer Hebrides, Sorley MacRath loved the moorlands and the brilliant night skies he knew as a child, but he knew as well the destructive power of the gift of ’second sight’. As a young man he turned his back on the island life for life in Glasgow where, ultimately, he runs an antiquarian bookshop. But events soon prove to him that his inherited powers are far greater than he knew. A violent assault leaves him in a coma and triggers his initiation as a shaman through startling encounters with his ancestors, only for him to wake into a sceptical world with no place for his archaic powers, and he too is uncertain of their truth and unskilled in their application. Haunted by memories and loss, he returns to his island home determined to prove the truth in his powers and his worth. There, living in the long-empty family croft house, he is drawn back to the wild beauty of the moorlands and the Gaelic culture of his childhood. Set on the Isle of Lewis and in Glasgow, Far Inland draws on Gaelic and Inuit mythology and spirituality to inform a contemporary tale that is profoundly original, elegiac and redemptive.
Peter Urpeth studied literature and philosophy at Middlesex Polytechnic. He worked as a music journalist for Time Out and is a former editor of the Stornoway Gazette. He is HI-Arts’ writing development coordinator and lives on Lewis. This is his first novel.
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