WALTER

by David Cook ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1985

Mercilessly spare and filled with tragedy: the life-story of a retarded man, born to working-class English parents in 1930. Sarah, only child of a bitter, husband-deserted mother, is nonetheless intent on marriage and children: ""That's what women did, if they were to have respect."" She finds an unpromising husband in Eric--product of an incestuous union, raised in an orphanage and traumatically abused by a lascivious matron. Still, after a nightmare-honeymoon of silence and misery, Sarah woos Eric into a tentative but increasingly exciting initiative: three years later Walter is born, apparently normal. But soon it's clear that Walter is ""different."" He soils himself, salivates, and has a vocabulary of five words--only after Sarah's ""laborious effort."" Eventually he's admitted to a Special School--after Sarah fails in a mercy-killing attempt. And, while his parents' marriage becomes ever more dismal (Eric finds solace in flying pigeons), Walter emerges from the School at 14, speech somewhat improved, determined to do what a ""good boy"" does: at last he becomes a cleaner/machine-tender at the local Woolworth's--with help from a kind (if delicately manipulative) boss and some careful social adaptations. (""Look! He was laughing. Look! It made people feel better when they saw Walter laughing. . . To those who worked at Woolworth's it seemed that Walter was permanently in a state of good humor."") But, after the deaths of Eric and Sarah, a Social Worker takes WaKer into an institutional hell for the ""subnormal,"" a world of ""screams, gasps, screeches, grunts, mumbles, moans, and whines""--where Waiter will remain for the rest of his life, obediently doing the worst Staff dirty work, knowing that this is his ""real world. . . He would never get out of it."" An unrelentingly grim case-history--pounded home in lean, grey prose.

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Overlook--dist. by Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1985

Categories: FICTION