If you’re anything like me, you probably take pleasure from classifying books in various unusual ways. One of my favorites is to assign each novel I read to one of the four seasons. And so I have summer reads, winter reads, spring reads and fall reads. Fall reads are the most tricky ones. They’re novels which meditate on life, forcing you to slow down and ask yourself some difficult questions. “A Line Made by Walking” by Sara Baume is one such book.
The heroine of Sara’s novel, Frankie, is 25 and a fine art graduate who’s going through a breakdown. She has decided to leave her life in Dublin to pursue inner peace in the countryside, in the solitude of her late grandmother’s house. Left alone by almost everyone, surrounded by nature and family memorabilia, she hopes to put herself back together. Finding strange comfort in the life-death cycle, and striving to revive her inner artist, Frankie dedicates herself to a curious artistic project of photographing dead animals. Each chapter of Sara Baume’s book is illustrated by such a photograph (and named after the animal that’s passed).
While reading, we’re also catching glimpses of Frankie’s childhood and early adult years, only to discover that her recent breakdown wasn’t as unexpected as it seemed and Frankie is, in fact, suffering from a mental illness.
Now, if you’re looking for a plot twist, or some drama to unfold itself next, you’ll be disappointed – it’s not that kind of a book.
“A Line Made by Walking” is undoubtedly a meditative novel. It’s deliberately slow in its pace but, surprisingly, I did not mind it one bit. I was actually late in publishing this review because of how slow my reading process was! I felt that rushing through this book would somehow break its spell and undermine its message.
This novel does not belong on your “light and easy reads” shelf, there’s no doubt about that. It might be particularly hard to digest for people who tend to identify themselves with characters in books they read. It presents an introspective and intimate picture of a young woman feeling lost, forlorn, not able to really connect with anyone. It’s very raw, very real, and unforgettably extraordinary.
Read if:
- You feel that you need to slow down and you’re looking for a book to help you achieve that.
- You’re done with the “beach reads” category and crave a novel with an actual depth to it.
Avoid if:
- You’re after fast-paced storylines – you’ll be severely disappointed by this book.
- You’re triggered by descriptions of dead animals.
