How to Walk Away (novel)

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How to Walk Away
HowToWalkAwayCover.jpg
Cover of first edition, cover image: Untitled fresco by George Schneeman
AuthorLisa Birman
CountryUnited States
Genre Literary Fiction
PublisherSpuyten Duyvil Press
Publication date
February 1st, 2015
Media typePrint (softcover)
Pages288
ISBN 9781941550021

How to Walk Away is a 2015 novel and the debut novel of Australian novelist Lisa Birman. The work was first published on 1 February 2015 in the United States by Spuyten Duyvil Press. The novel centers on veteran Otis and his wife Cat, a genealogist. How to Walk Away is an exploration of post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsion, body integrity disorder, and the grief of keeping secrets born in war.

Contents

Synopsis

After three years in Afghanistan, Otis is adjusting to life back home. Struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, he obsessively replays the traumas of war, cataloging the names of the dead. Cat, his wife, is a genealogist who makes maps of families in an attempt to understand her world. When a car accident takes Otis's left arm, he is grateful to bear a physical loss that makes his damaged emotional self visible. As he recovers, he and Cat confront the silences upon which their marriage is built. [1]

Awards

On March 17, 2016 Birman's novel was named a finalist, in the genre of literary fiction, by Colorado Humanities for their annual Colorado Book Awards., [2] and on May 22, 2016 Birman's novel won the award for literary fiction. [3]

Reviews

"How to Walk Away starts at the return. Enveloped and interspersed with letter narration, the short and shorter sections of the book craft a psychological domestic journey in three acts from Otis’ isolation to a delayed reunion with his wife, Cat. Birman's careful structure offers road signs for the reader travelling the confusion of the narrator's consuming obsessions." - Chelsea Werner-Jatzke, The Conium Review [4]

"Moment to moment we are with Otis as he tries to fit the pieces of himself back into the form called “normal.” We suffer his claustrophobia-along with his need to escape from his own thoughts." - Judith Podell, American Book Review [5]

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References

  1. "How to Walk Away".
  2. "2016 Colorado Book Awards Finalists | Colorado Humanities". Archived from the original on 15 August 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2016.
  3. "2016 Colorado Book Award Winners | Colorado Humanities". www.coloradohumanities.org. Archived from the original on 26 May 2016.
  4. "Book Review: "How to Walk Away," A Kind of Cartography". 31 January 2015.
  5. Podell, Judith (2015). "What Lies Beneath". American Book Review. 36 (2): 21. doi:10.1353/abr.2015.0018. S2CID   144738830. Project MUSE   578868.
  6. ""Peggy Alaniz interviews Lisa Birman"". Woodland Pattern Book Center. Retrieved 16 May 2024.