Title: Walking Davis; a novel.
Authors: Ely, David, 1927-
Publisher: Charterhouse
Year: 1972
Subjects: Voyages and travels Fiction.; Walking Fiction.; Europe Description and travel Fiction.; North America Description and travel Fiction.
Abstract: The cops tell him he can't walk on the road--"but nobody walks! Roads aren't made for walking!" A reverse racist Jamaican tells Davis he hasn't "suffered" enough to tackle the project. His family doesn't care much, and his sponsor pulls support. And still Davis keeps walking...Des Moines, Peoria, Kankakee, Lafayette, Marion, Columbus and Newark, Pittsburgh, up into Vermont and then Canada, Scotland and England, France, Germany, Greece and Turkey... The obsession shines through in the writing. It's wonderful to see something as mundane as walking made a gripping adventure and a metaphor. Davis' trials are with the system as a rebel, with nature as a man. Just as I'd think of one of his setbacks as excessive, I'd recall that things could be worse. Which may be the point here. If we stop walking, we surrender to the world. Davis won't be stopped. Lack of support, a conman agent, the spotlight swinging to an upstart competitor, police, psychiatrists, Greek nurses and their jealous brothers, all are just bumps on the road. --Michael Z. Williamson at Amazon.com.