A night of words and music to remember. Malachy Tallack joined us to discuss ‘The Beautiful Atlantic Waltz’ and we got to experience the magic of hearing him play some of the songs from his accompanying album as well.

Thank you Mallachy for visiting Mainstreet and sharing your moving new novel and album with us.

You can listen to his album on streaming services and we can highly recommend giving it a listen while you dive into the novel.

About the book

1957. Sonny is working on a whaling ship in the South Atlantic, reckoning with the most vicious storms he has ever seen. It’s a brutal way to make a living. When he finally returns to his Shetland home to build a life with his wife and young son, the legacy of his time at sea is felt by all of them.

In present day Shetland, Jack is an old man, living alone in the cottage where he grew up, in the shadow of a hill. And it is here, one evening, that something appears on his doorstep. Something that throws off the rhythm of his solitary existence in the most profound way.

This is a story of unlikely friendship, longing, the power of music and the pull of home. It is about a life revisited – and reimagined.

A novel of quiet elegance and emotional intelligence, great delicacy and deceptive simplicity. It’s a story of grief, redemption and an unlikely friendship left me longing for the quick skies and luminous seas of Shetland – GAVIN FRANCIS

A deeply kind and unhurried book, whose quiet affection for the awkward, lonesome Jack and the Shetland home he’s never left just sings off the page. A love letter to country music too, and the emotional labour that songs do to keep us afloat and map the arc of our tiny beautiful lives – KARINE POLWART

At once both heart-throbbingly beautiful and deeply contemplative, both deftly sparing and expertly evocative . . . An entrancing, enthralling and enriching read from start to finish – I savoured every moment and morsel of it – MICHAEL PEDERSEN

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