LatinosUSA

Hi, all:

I bring you a novel by an author we’ve heard a lot of recently, but who has been writing for a very long time.

Walk Me to the Distance by Percy Everett

Now with a brilliant new package, a re-issue of the sophomore novel by Percival Everett, New York Times bestselling author of National Book Award winner James.

Haunting, provocative and bleakly funny, Walk Me to the Distance is Percival Everett’s brilliant reexamination of the Western, and a laconic tragicomedy about what it takes to survive in the last days of a bygone big-sky country.

In self-imposed exile after returning home from the war in Vietnam, David Larson meanders into the barren town of Slut’s Hole, Wyoming, where a local widow takes him under her wing. After making a sort of home among the town’s hardscrabble locals, David grudgingly adopts a young Vietnamese girl abandoned along the highway. This sets in motion a number of tragic turns as Western mythos and frontier justice clash against the tides of a changing world.

First published in 1985 by Clarion Books, Walk Me to the Distance was the sophomore novel of an iconic American voice. Over the course of his five decade career, Everett has written over twenty five books and been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize (for 2020’s Telephone), twice longlisted for the Booker Prize, and the recipient of the 2024 National Book Award for the “genius” (The Atlantic) James, a brilliantly imagined retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. James was a #1 New York Times bestseller and is being developed into film by Stephen Spielberg.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/237140305-walk-me-to-the-distance?

About the author:

PERCIVAL EVERETT is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC and the author of Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner James. His other most recent books include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award, The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University, and the Stowe Prize for Literary Activism. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children.

My review:

This is the first novel I read by Percy Everett, better known recently for James, which I also have but haven’t read yet. I came across this novel (the second one he published) by chance, and on the strength of the description and the sample I checked, I started reading it as soon as I could.

I had heard about the author, of course, but when I checked his biography, read the book, and saw that this novel had been published over 40 years ago, I realised that although perhaps he had come to the attention of most readers recently, the quality of his writing was evident from very early on, and his popular success was a long time coming.

The protagonist, David Larson, is a Vietnam veteran whose parents died in a car accident while he was away and whose only sister is less than welcoming on his return.

Not having anywhere to go, he takes to the road, and when his car needs a repair (it’s his own fault, by the way) in the middle of nowhere, he ends up stuck for at least a week (possibly two) in a pretty isolated place with a ‘curious’ name. There he meets some fabulous characters, especially Sixbury, his landlady, and somehow he ends up adopted by the place and adopting it (and a little girl in the bargain).

I am not sure I am a big believer in fate, but I am fascinated by novels, plays, or movies that feature it as a theme, as happens here. Apart from the everyday (but peculiar) adventures David gets involved in, the novel is rich in descriptions of people, places, feelings, and emotions that feel genuine and true, even when the events and the circumstances might be miles away from our lives.

This is a wonderful book, with lots of humour (pretty dark sometimes), and some truly horrible moments, like life itself. Readers should be warned that although much of the violence and other disturbing events take place outside of the page, this is not a cosy or gentle read, and some of the things that happen are morally questionable (although perhaps justified).

The ending is open, but it felt right to me, and I think this is a book most people would be eager to reflect upon and talk about for a long time after finishing it.

An excellent novel by an author who has received awards and recognition, and deservedly so.

Thanks to the author for this book (it won’t be the last of his I read, I’m sure), and thanks to all of you for reading, visiting, sharing, and for all your support. Keep smiling and keep reading. ♥