WALKING ON WATER

The fifth volume in the Walk series brings it to a pedestrian close.

Followers of the series know that Alan Christoffersen is walking across America to mend his broken heart after his wife’s death. Starting in Seattle, his goal is Key West. When he reaches Jacksonville, Florida, news arrives of a dire family emergency, so he flies home to deal with it. Afterward, he returns to his walk, during which he mulls over the meaning of life and occasionally trades wisdom with strangers. One of them says Christoffersen is “like most of humanity, looking for something that’s ultimately not worth finding.” But Christoffersen disagrees. He's looking for hope. This last leg of his journey is about 500 miles of straight line, which pretty much describes the plot. Every day he walks 20 miles, give or take a few, and every day he says what he eats and whom he meets. Fine. This is a journal, after all. But there are no surprises, mysteries, twists, setbacks or disasters except for the one beginning the tale. He deeply misses his wife, of course, and is now in love with a woman he’s never kissed and who's engaged to marry another man. Meanwhile, he claims to be “not wired for celibacy,” yet he calmly rebuffs the advances of two lusty sirens in a bar without even reporting a tingle below the belt. From his journal entries, Christoffersen appears to be a man without fault. No, he doesn’t compare himself to Jesus, but the metaphor is clear. After a rain, he realizes he's “walking on water,” but it’s no Sea of Galilee. Anyone can walk on water this shallow.

Readers of the first four volumes will enjoy this conclusion. Others who are interested should read these feel-good books in sequence, starting with The Walk.