Walk Through Darkness Book

Is it nature of historical novels to rely on huge chunks of exposition? If you are blindly devoted to the "show don't tell" school of writing, then skip this book. You won't have the patience for the occasionally clunky swathes of exposition.

For the rest of you, this is an excellent quest set in antebellum America. William, a twenty year old slave, finds out his wife Dover is pregnant. Dover is in Philadelphia; while still a slave, she lives in one of the states where slavery is no longer legal. In love, longing for family and connection, William slips away one night. The distance between Maryland and Pennsylvania is huge and full of obstacles for a slave on the run, and William comes up against each and every one.

Where there are runaway slaves, there are trackers, and among those tracking William is Morrison, an immigrant with a violent history. It didn't take me long to see Morrison's connection to William; the story alternates between his and William's journey, and while Morrison is not exactly forthcoming, his motives become clearer with each brief section.

Hmm...in some ways this reminded me of The Keep, just in terms of the narrative structure and the pacing. I was also really impressed by Durham's characterizations; William is so much more than "slave." He's an impulsive twenty-year-old boy, a mess of conflicting emotions and yet very much a product of his time. Morrison and Dover are distinct secondary characters, and even the minor characters who help/try to destroy William along the way are memorable.

Also, much of the novel seemed to speak to the present. I don't know quite how to explain this. The most obvious way is the scene that reminded me of current methods of interrogating suspected terrorists. But the connection I'm talking about is much more subtle than that.

Why four stars instead of five? I did find some of the writing a little mannered, some of the exposition a little long-winded. But I read the whole book. I rarely read fiction during the school year, so I consider it a mark of the writing and the story that I was able to finish the novel and enjoy it so much.