Ruth is a novelist subject to grandiose hallucinations. Completing this cast of characters is the single loner of the group, Mr. Hsia, an Asian businessman, who has a particularly keen interest in Bobby and Coleman's business and may or may not be plotting a hostile takeover. Like any other group of strangers quickly thrown into proximity, alliances and tensions stress and strain the group. Nearly 30 years later, Susan, the daughter of Bobby and Carole, studies the court transcripts, her mother's letters, and Ruth's diary, as she tries to understand what led to this catastrophe. At this point in the future, Susan is looking back at a world that literally no longer exists.
Nobody now has the opportunity to visit a lush, pastoral country.
This 21st century is a dark, barren world ruled by a violent gang called the Strags. Davis' fragmented narrative is demanding but exhilarating. Few writers are confident enough to attempt such a complex plot and fewer still are skilled enough to bring it off. There are subtle homages to Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Sylvia Plath within The Walking Tour , which seems completely appropriate. At the end of the novel, it doesn't matter so much that Davis has provided a tidy solution for her mysteries but that she is able to convince you that every individual and event in the novel was in some way responsible for both disasters.