Customer Reviews

The Walkaway

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is an interesting, character-heavy book, which relives the past while living through a present-day upheaval. The upheaval in question revolves around Gunther Fahnstiel who has walked out of his nursing home without any of the nursing staff noticing. Naturally his family is beside themselves and are very keen to have him found again. Gunther was in the nursing home because of the steady onset of senility. He's an ex-policeman and believes that he has some urgent unfinished business to take care of, leading him through the streets of Wichita, Kansas.

The time setting switches from chapter to chapter, taking us from 1989 back to 1952. The chapters about the earlier years are all written from a third person perspective, but the person whose perspective it is coming from changes in each chapter providing very interesting insights into each character.

Through Gunther's slipping mind it becomes clear that something very important happened in 1952 that has affected Gunther and most of the other characters in the book quite deeply. Gunther is drawn back to the place it all happened thinking he has some loose ends to tie up and so, all plotlines are inevitably drawn along with him, providing a satisfying, yet somewhat wistful ending.

After reading ICE HARVEST, I could not wait to get my hands on Phillips' next novel. If it had been another pulp yarn in the vein of his first novel, I would have been plenty satisfied. But THE WALKAWAY goes far beyond expectations. It is a sophistcated book showcasing Phillips' deft skills as an author. He expertly handles different times and points of view. The novel works as a literary achievement as well as a top-notch crime tale.

There's a lot of [stuff] to wade through out there in the book stores -- same-old-same-old cops-n-robbers plodding through the usual formulas. It was a breath of fresh air to read a novel with ambition and style.

I found the Walkaway to be a compelling and dark novel about memory and crime. It's not a mystery in the conventional gumshoe sense, though at its heart it is a convincing tale about crime and the way crime dominoes into lives. Both funny and chilling, The Walkway is the Ice Harvest times two: twice the characters, twice the violence, twice the emotional significance. If you loved The Ice Harvest, you'll cherish The Walkaway.

Scott Phillips has managed to both top his sparkling debut The Ice Harvest and create expectation for what he might do next. This novel within a novel -- the story takes places in two different time periods and in several voices -- is just as violent, funny, and well written as Phillips' debut while maintaining a fascinating narrative thread. Only two books into his career and already Phillips has to be considered one of the best in the business. A great read.

I don't normally read "crime fiction" (or whatever this is) but I really enjoyed Phillips' first book, "The Ice Harvest," which created a neat, sweaty mood and sustained it.
The twist ending of that book sets up the beginning of this book, but you really don't need to have read that one to enjoy this one. Again, it's a well-written story of greed and lust and rage, set in a small Midwestern town. I couldn't put it down.
Two notes: First, as has been noted by other reviewers, there are multiple points of view here and two different time frames. You'll be well-served to take notes on the characters' names and who they are, what their relationships are, etc. This isn't Dostoyevsky, but there are a lot of names here and the relationships and time frames are pretty tangled. Half the fun, of course, is unravelling all of it (especially the relationships), but a simple list of characters would have helped. The publisher should really consider doing that in the paperback edition.
Second, as a result of keeping the notes above, I realized that one character is referred to by two different names, with no narrative reason or explanation. The character is "Carswell" who is also referred to in a couple of places as "Gladwell." I think it's just a mistake or an editorial problem or something. That should also definitely be corrected in future editions.
This is a well-written book, with a lot of depth, an interesting plot, and some despicable characters doing nasty things to each other - and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

THe Ice Harvest was a dark piece of noir, very funny and painfully good. With this one, Phillips paints several pictures at once, all a little different, all building to a great story. I like the fracture of different points of view, giving me more depth than a single POV, more complication added to the richness.

And still, he's just drop dead funny in the darkest sense, which is the best sense.

"The Ice Harvest" was my favorite book of 2000. With "The Walkaway" Scott Phillips confirmed my suspicions that he is one of the best writers working today. Yes, there are many characters and overlapping storylines in this book. So what? I had no trouble whatsoever following these stories, and the subtle emotional payoff that was delivered as they all tied together was an original, unexpected delight. Phillips doesn't write for dummies. He's hunting big game on the literary frontier. And with this book he has bagged a winner. He manages to combine deadpan humor, stark reality and deep, resonant emotions in a way unique to the current spate of by-the-numbers best sellers clogging the bookstores. I can't wait to see what he does next!

Retired cop Gunther Fahnstiel played only a bit part in Scott Phillips' first novel, The Ice Harvest; a sensational example of noir crime writing featuring a narrative that unfolds in the Wichita of 1979. But in Phillips' second novel, The Walkaway, Gunther is front and center.
This fascinating gem of a book is set in the Wichita of 1989, but with frequent extended flashbacks to 1952. So, The Walkaway has the distinction of being both a sequel and a prequel to The Ice Harvest.

The Walkaway has a decidedly complex structure. Not only does the time frame repeatedly jump back and forth between 1989 and 1952, but the identity of the narrator keeps changing as well. In the hands of a less talented novelist, this would result in a chaotic hodgepodge. But Scott Phillips really knows what he's doing. The unconventional construction allows the reader to put the pieces of the various plot threads together and have plenty of fun while doing so.

There's a lot going on in this book. When Gunther, now 77 years old, wanders away from his nursing home, his memory impaired mind dredges up thoughts of Sally Ogden, a girlfriend from the distant past. Sally worked for Collins Aircraft, a local defense contractor. But in her spare time, she was known to supplement her income by hostessing sex parties. Unbeknownst to Sally, her estranged husband Wayne, an Army master sergeant last stationed in Japan, returns to Wichita intent on wrecking her lucrative operation.
As Gunther's concerned friends and family search for him in the Wichita of 1989, author Scott Phillips masterfully reveals what happened between Gunther, Sally and Wayne in the same city 37 years before.

The Walkaway is a very engaging black comedy that succeeds in presenting a largely unsentimental picture of life in middle America. Its intricately crafted narrative is very effective as it relates a number of intertwined stories that span the decades. Original in structure, uninhibited in content and deliciously cynical in its point of view, this book is a refreshing treat. Highly recommended.

I read Phillips' _The Ice Harvest_ in preparation for the film release and liked it so much I immediately started on _The Walkaway_. The book is a sequel and a prequel to _Harvest_ and a passing familiarity with the earlier book helps, though it is not an absolute requirement. _The Walkaway_ isn't as dark a book, though it does trace two separate plots, one in 1952, the other in 1989, as they meander in and out of the criminal underworld of Wichita, Kansas. At times, it's almost as if Phillips is writing the secret history of Wichita by chronicling the criminal classes, though the book isn't as epic as that may sound. The events all have to do with Gunther Fahnstiel, an old man who has wandered away from his retirement home, and whose memory isn't as sharp as it used to be. Back in 1952, Gunther was a young policeman, trying to stop Sally Ogden's estranged husband, Wayne, home on leave from the army, from settling his accounts with her. In the present day, Gunther is wandering around his old home town, seeking the cache of money he hid ten years before (following events in _The Ice Harvest_). If that sounds complex, well, it is, but Phillips is such a strong writer that he can tell this fractured story from multiple viewpoints and tell it in such a way that it all fits together by novel's end, which is one of the more poignant and satisfying conclusions I can remember. I can hardly wait to get my hands on Phillips' third novel, _Cottonwood_.

Scott Phillips is an American treasure. He writes the kinds of crime novels that people have either been to scared to write or to uninventive to think of. Ice Harvest was a greedy delight in all 200 pages of prose and the Walkaway serves as notice that Phillips is just starting to peak. I've read ten great crime books this year(Jolie Blon's Bounce by James Lee Burke, Gone For Good by Harlan Coben, Tishimingo Blues by Elmore Leonard, Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell, Living Dead Girl by Tod Goldberg, The Horned Man by James Lasdun, Diamond Dust by Peter Lovesy, the Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Carter Beats The Devil by Glen David Gold included) and the Walkaway is the sharpest, funniest, and more promising of the lot. I can't wait for another dose of Phillips.