The Walnut Door

by John Hersey

Limited 1st edition printed for subscribers of the First Edition Society, bound in brown leather with gilt & orange stamped decorations and gilt page edges, raised spine bands, silk bookmark. Illustrated by Allan Marden. With Club Notes Pamphlet about the book, laid-in loose. 8vo (9.50 X 5.75") size, 227pp. A Fine copy but for a few dust spots at the outer edge of the gilt page blocks.

248 pages, Leather Bound

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

John Richard Hersey, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer, earliest practiced the "new journalism," which fuses storytelling devices of the novel with nonfiction reportage. A 36-member panel under the aegis of journalism department of New York University adjudged account of Hersey of the aftermath of the atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, as the finest piece of journalism of the 20th century.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 1 out of 5]

The ONLY explanation for this book is that Hersey is some kind of pervert. How this book was every published blows my mind. Okay, I get that this was published in the 70s and men obviously had idiotic views of women, but really? College educated women gets creepy calls from a creeper locksmith. College educated women finds creepy locksmith broke into room, thinks nothing of it. College educated woman gets locked and held hostage in her own house by creepy locksmith. Logical next step? According to Hersey, it's to make her lust after him AND threaten to rape him. Yes, she threatened to rape the creepy locksmith. Then she feels safe.
How does this garbage get published??

[Dragonave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Comparing glue to semen is a new personal all time low.

This book is a typical example of the terrible American literature that was produced in the 70's and 80's. I would actually place it right next to Paul Theroux's "Picture Palace" and John Updike's "The Witches of Eastwick". The story is non-existing and the writing is awful. It is actually worse. Hersey, just like Theroux and Updike, must think that his writing is super clever and smart, that he can concatenate a series of complicate words one after the other and use convoluted metaphors and comparisons and call it a day. God, the comparisons he uses in this book are attrocious, I wonder how he came up with those. Hersey must had thrown darts onto a wall full of random words.

Just like Updike and Theroux, Hersey wants to shock the reader by being overly sexual or phrasing taboo subjects as common places (but he doesn't go all-in or is too explicit, he actually thinks he is doing high literature). If in "Picture Palace" we have a sister lusting for a sexual intercourse with her brother, and in "The Witches of Eastwick" we have "witches" craving for, again, sexual intercourse with the personification of Satan, then in "The Walnut Door" we have a creepy guy that jimmies and sneaks into a woman's apartment, then locks her up while she finds it super normal, even accepts her fate, only to later try rape the guy with a knife! She fails and thus feels safe afterwards. The whole story, specially the final sexual descriptions, make this book sound like one of those cheap erotica you find at the back of bookstores.

I've seen that John Hersey was actually a very famous journalist. He had a hidden talent for fiction. He should have kept it a secret, though.

[Ann Straight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing. Complexity with character development. Late 60 slang and tons of literary references that I didn't get. The writing style was fine but someone slow in pace. Don't recommend. Maybe the literary type will like it but left me feeling tired.

[Thomas Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this particular book he weaves a tale around an opportunistic locksmith and a timid young woman who is seeking security and safety in a world that she isn't sure if very friendly. So even though we would call the locksmith a stalker these days, he didn't do what he did because he meant any type of harm to the young woman. He sensed her need for security and she allowed him to provide that for her even if the way he controlled her life was in essence a form of imprisonment.

[Brandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very curious eccentric book. Story lines twisted all around & lead back together again. If you like reading about other people's lives... you'll like this book.

[Juneus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the longest, drawn out, complicated, narration of foreplay, I have ever read. I gave it 3 stars because just as an example of the elegant use of words to waste a reader's time, it is in a class by itself. I cannot avoid admiring Hershey's ability to use those same words to accomplish the trick of simultaneously nauseating and teaching the reader. I hate to admit it but I learned a lot about writing from that "wasted time."
The final page of this book is unnecessary because the ending was inevitable very early in what passes as the story.

[ShaLisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was interesting. I liked the writing. I liked the plot involving the walnut door. I liked the evolving characters - their search for safety which they were unknowingly deprived of as youth. They became safe with who they are. The book had the intent to uncover pent up feelings from the past, enlighten and set free. Macaboy and Elaine understood themselves more as they sought to understand each other.

I did not care for the occasional crude language or behaviors.

Walnut would make a beautiful door.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was OK says it all. I don't think it merited a special, leather bond, gold edged first edition.

[Hannah Eskra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could rate this another half star. I liked this book a lot, partly because of its dated content and style, and partly because its one of those stories that is sort of about nothing. Not nothing at all, but nothing in the way that nothing truly exciting happens. It's a glimpse at a short time in someone else's life, and I really enjoy that, though I know that isn't for everyone.

This isn't a book I will rave about, or one I would recommend to a hesitant reader. It's a book for a rainy day, a cup of tea, mood lighting, and the grace of mind to be content with reaching the end and going, "well, okay, now what?"