The Walking Tour

Kathryn Davis's The Walking Tour is an ambitious exploration of the human urge to understand the present as the product of the past. Who writes the histories, tells the stories, makes the myths that humans embrace as they attempt to make sense of existence? The answer, this novel suggests, is that it's just ordinary people who do, ordinary people just like those of us reading the novel. Susan Rose narrates Davis's complex mosaic of Welsh myth, contemporary painting, computer technology, and the timeless passions of human beings: greed, lust, love, envy, the urge to create art. Susan attempts to understand what caused the disastrous and fatal events that transpired during a walking tour of Wales undertaken by her parents, Bobby, a wealthy and powerful internet magnate, and Carole, a world-renowned painter who has struggled with schizophrenia her whole life; and their friends, Coleman Snow, Bobby's business partner, and Ruth Farr, his would-be novelist wife. Relying upon a variety of documentary sources--Ruth's digital journal, Coleman's vacation photos, Carole's picture postcards, and the transcript of a civil lawsuit that followed the tour--Susan struggles to piece together a coherent vision of what happened, why it happened, and what it means. The novel's brilliance resides in Davis's adept handling of a complex narrative over which she never loses control. The story unfolds as a mystery of sorts, but what makes it memorable is how Davis places her readers in the same position as Susan Rose: we too must attempt to create a myth, tell ourselves a story, create a history that will account for the information we encounter. And that's no easy task. The novel invites misreadings and even at times may frustrate us. However, it would be quite a challenge for any reader to dig into her or his own past in the way Susan does without becoming frustrated and confused at times. Why should Susan's search be any easier for readers than it is for her? The novel's use of Welsh mythology produces a resonance and depth to the story: Susan--and her readers--are doing no more and no less than the Welsh themselves when they created the myths that lent meaning to their own past and present. "The Walking Tour" does not serve up a bland, easy-to-digest Happy Meal but instead offers a feast. Readers will need to be alert and will have to concentrate on the text, but for those who do, the reward is a memorable experience. A terrific book for readers who welcome ambiguity and depth in their reading.

People will be reading, studying and writing about Kathryn Davis for many, many years. Her work is playful, complex and exceedingly intelligent--incomparably precise. Part Henry James, part Virginia Woolf, completely original. The tone of this novel is so strange and original it is hard to describe, but its caginess is part of its massive appeal. Kathryn Davis will in the future be considered one of our most important novelists without a doubt.

Kathryn Davis's book is wiser about our future -- really our present -- than UNDERWORLD. Hers is a fiercely moral view, as strange as it is accessible, as innovative as it is traditional. It's a heady mix. Following to an extent the conventions of the upper-middle-class-white-philanderers-narrative, she raises questions of identity, text, and defends the not-quite-stabilizing, not-quite-liberatory imperative of art. A mysterious and -- yes! -- delightful read.

The book is cleverly constructed and well-written. I found myself loving both the plot and the characters.

I really wouldn't care much what Kathryn Davis writes about- her prose is seamless and poetic, the mere way she puts words together is absolutely breathtaking. However the Walking Tour is also a fine story, filled with mystery, emotion, and mythology; it is a tour from the near future back to the past. Once you've begun these exquisitely tuned pages, you will not want it to end.