Ed takes THE WALK

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THE WALK probably wouldn't have been published by Five Star back in 2004 if it wasn't for Ed Gorman's enthusiastic recommendation to the editors. I've always known that he liked the book, but until his blog post today, I didn't realize how much. He says, in part:

it's a book far richer than most suspense novels[…]Marty Slack is the protagonist, a TV executive whose largest burden is being himself. As much as he resents and hates the grasping, greedy, treacherous people at the top of the TV ladder, he has to reluctantly admit to himself, in the course of his journey to reach home after being stranded miles away, that he is an awful lot like them. Slack is a character we get to know as well as we know people in the best of mainstream novels. Goldberg gives us a real live person here. And he doesn't cheat. We come to like Slack but there are moments when we see him as shallow, selfish and even pompous. But he's fascinating because he's so well detailed.

[…]And then there's Marty Slack's marriage. This storyline is another example of what I mean about Goldberg pushing against genre boundries. This isn't just a cliche portrait of a marriage in trouble. This, and at some length, is the dissection of two people who've realized that their marriage may be beyond repair. The scenes of recrimination, rage, despair hurt to witness. Beth Slack is just as painfully real as Marty Slack.

[…]This is a magnificent novel–by turns hilarious, scary, sad, witty and ultimately wise on its judgments about the way so many of us live these days.

Thank you so much, Ed!

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