That Beautiful
Atlantic Waltz
A novel with a soundtrack – an album with a story.
Book and music are out now, together with an audiobook containing both. .
Order the novel
Order the album
Order the audiobook
The novel
​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. Jack's life revolves around country songs: listening to them, writing them. Music is his great passion. But one evening, something appears on his doorstep 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.​​​
The album
That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz is accompanied by an album of songs, all ostensibly written by Jack. They are performed by the author, together with some of Scotland's finest musicians: Andrew Gifford, Jenna Reid, Laura-Beth Salter, Mark Scobbie and Conor Smith.
A stunning limited edition 12" record, pressed on marbled aquamarine vinyl, is available now (signed or unsigned) from Bandcamp. The album can also be downloaded from Bandcamp, or you can listen via streaming services.
This recording was funded by Creative Scotland
Praise for
That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz
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"Wonderful" -- ELVIS COSTELLO
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"This is a beautifully written novel, imaginative, understanding and sympathetic. The Northern Isles have a rich literary heritage. Malachy Tallack takes his place in a line of excellence, a worthy heir to ... Edwin Muir and George Mackay Brown. Matching such writers is no mean feat." Allan Massie, THE SCOTSMAN
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"That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz is a quiet marvel, a rich and gentle book of small moments, large lives and hidden miracles. With real skill and restraint, Tallack shows characters living with dignity and wit and no small courage, faced with the vagaries of fate" -- MARTIN MACINNES
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"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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"I lingered with each page, sinking into the quiet tenderness of the writing, the spray of sea and wind, the immense loneliness and dignity of Jack. Malachy writes about choked emotions with such kindness. It’s the sort of nuanced portrait of community that’s only possible from a writer who understands a place on a molecular level: land, dialect, elements, history, collective trauma, the tiniest inflections of old grievances and yearnings. And of course I loved the music. It’s such a hard thing to get music right in writing, whether choosing the words to conjure the exact sound or allowing music to do the job of prising open a character. Malachy writes about music from the inside out, pinpointing the granular allure of a song, getting at the nub of the thing which is what music can do for people when their words and bodies fall short. A soulful, subtle beauty of a book." -- KATE MOLLESON
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"An evocative, enchanting, unique modern island fable" -- RODDY WOOMBLE
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"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
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"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
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"Malachy Tallack is working at the very top of his game as a novelist. This lovely book is beautifully put together, with perfect economy - the language is clear, sparse and beautiful, not a word wasted. In quickly but expertly drawn strokes, the story of a life lived unremarkably but no less meaningfully for that, is illustrated with perfect clarity and heartbreaking poignancy. A tiny shining gem of a thing" -- KIRSTIN INNES
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"This is a beautiful and tender novel, quietly profound and full of heart and longing" -- DOUG JOHNSTONE
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"As an islander and a songwriter, it seems to me that both, when done well, are about a kind of truth. About finding one correct note after the other. And in this beautiful book, and in Cautious Jack, Malachy Tallack does it for us over and over again. A life portrait that proves each person is an island themselves, surrounded by the notes of the Atlantic" -- COLIN MACINTYRE