All Jack Paton ever wanted was to be a famous country singer, but somehow it never happened. Certainly, the odds were stacked against him: cripplingly shy, no self-confidence. And although he considers it “a landscape of country music”, it can’t have helped matters that he was born in one of the more windswept corners of Shetland, far from Texas or Tennessee, and has remained there ever since, keeping his dreams to himself.
That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz, Malachy Tallack’s second novel, follows Jack, now approaching his 63rd birthday, as he spends his days pottering about in the cottage he has lived in since he was a child, listening to music, playing guitar and thinking of the past. The narrative flicks between Jack in the present, as he begins to question his life choices, and his parents, Sonny and Kathleen, decades earlier, as they toil in the island’s whaling industry and build the house Jack will later inherit. Like Tallack’s previous novel, The Valley at the Centre of the World, which also focused on life on these isolated islands, the pace is subdued and the action limited. So much so that Jack’s life is thrown into turmoil, and the gentle plot set in motion, by the discovery of an abandoned kitten on his doorstep.
Jack is a simple soul who has led a quiet life. As a boy he was shy and often bullied. As an adult he is shy and thoroughly pitied, his parents having died in a boating accident when he was in his late teens. He has lived alone ever since, working only as much as is necessary to stay afloat – doing “anything that didn’t ask too much of him”. Jack’s laid-back attitude and homely pleasures make him a congenial presence. “The second mug of tea of the day, Jack thought, was usually the best of all.” If he goes for a nice walk, then it’s not long before he’s looking forward to the ginger cake waiting for him when he gets home.
But, as the days have spilled away “like seeds onto concrete”, Jack has begun to feel a sharp pang of regret over what could have been. He wouldn’t say he’s lonely exactly, but perhaps a bit “lonesome” (a word that accords with his country music tastes). Fortunately, the presence of the kitten (named Loretta, after Loretta Lynn) also brings young Vaila, the daughter of his neighbour, to his door, and a friendship blossoms. This prompts some of the book’s sweetest passages, culminating in a surprise birthday party for Jack at Vaila’s mother’s house, with Jack wearing his finest cowboy shirt.
Some may not warm to the cosy atmosphere and trundling narrative (though these are offset somewhat by the blood-and-guts reality of the island’s whaling industry, which is affectingly woven in through the story of Jack’s parents). Long afternoons and evenings are spent in Jack’s living room as, High Fidelity-style, he runs through his favourite country singers (Charley Pride? “Top five, Jack thought. Definitely top five”). The necessity of naming the cat requires a dedicated session of list-making and agonised consideration. More taxing is a slight cutesiness that occasionally creeps in, as when the cat’s thoughts are ventriloquised in conversation with Jack (“Can’t a cat get some peace in her own home?”).
Nevertheless, the book is triumphant in its touching portrayal of Jack, a man unwillingly isolated by his own limitations. Too shy, too slow, too easily overwhelmed, he has spent his life hoping that “he would eventually find himself in the right place at the right time”. But it never happened, and so here he still is: “It was an agonising inertia that put an end to the life he had once almost imagined.” Tallack manages to convincingly capture both Jack’s deep underlying torment and his day-to-day contentedness.
Above all, the book is a celebration of art and music (it is peppered with Jack’s handwritten lyrics) and their power to extend beyond surface limitations. Despite what the other islanders think, Jack contains multitudes. “He became many people when he wrote and sang. He became bigger than himself, and his life became bigger than the one that he had lived.” A round of applause for Jack.
• That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack is published by Canongate (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
