Waterwalk: A Book to Savor

At least I did, savor it, I mean. And that's not supposed to be faint praise, for I still mean what I wrote (below) about this brand new book by a longtime friend, Steven Faulkner (who's written for Touchstone in the past).

I particularly commend Waterwalk: A Passage of Ghosts, to fathers with sons. My, I still feel like I was in the boat on that journey, with a very reflective and imaginative and spiritually earnest companion.

You can order it in time for Christmas, I'm sure, at Amazon. As I think I implied above, I didn't write this blurb as a mere favor, but with pleasure:

Steven Faulkner skillfully enlists sun, moon, wind, water, sand and fire in bringing the reader alongside him, with his son, on their nine-week voyage. Through his eye for detail and his bracing poetic imagination, Faulkner renders a quintessentially American landscape into not only a mirror of its historical movement from rugged wilderness to industrialized heartland, but also into an arena for the manly exertions of a father seeking only to connect with his son. Waterwalk is in turns humorous, haunting, exhilarating, even devastating, much as the courses of our lives unpredictably flow through both hardship and delight. There are encounters with “ghosts” here to be savored long afterwards. It’s a lyrical odyssey I did not want to end.

--James M. Kushiner
Executive Editor, Touchstone Magazine

Faulkner, a Catholic convert, raised a large family in Kansas, and worked various jobs while obtaining his doctorate in English. He's a gifted writer. And I don't think he would mind if I said that if you like Esolen, I'm willing to wager you'll love Waterwalk: A Passage of Ghosts.