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THE PRECARIOUS WALK: Essays from Sand & Sky
A book of wise essays about the pursuit for truth, the Great Basin, Southern Nevada and the A-bomb tests, and the author's travels to and from her home--the desert.
219 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 5, 2021
I am the author, so my review is biased, but these essays have been written over a period of twenty five years, and I've chosen the best of these essays written during this time. Some of them have won awards, and some have been listed as notable in BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS and BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING. These essays are a review of a life spent in searching for answers and then finding that the answer is more silent than vocal. I recommend this book to all who are on the same path.
February 5, 2023
I was under a deadline to finish reading this book and this is not the kind of book that moves fast. If genre fiction authors are adventure guides, Barber is a girl sitting in the shade obscured by a nostalgic haze, shooting the breeze with her reminisces. Sometimes this is exactly what you're looking for. I was a bit too impatient to enjoy the contemplative pace of these essays.
Barber is well-travelled, and my middle-class sensibilities always bristle a little at travel writing. Are you trying to show off how rich and cultured you are? No, she is not. Several stories that could easily turn into an eat-pray-love-esque narrative of only finding spirituality in other traditions are upended by Barber's way of finding spiritual meaning in all faiths--not just in the Mormon sacrament meetings of her youth and reflective middle age, but also in the services of a rural church in the south, and abroad among indigenous people. That said, sometimes her upper-middle-class existence is difficult to get away from, like when she describes going to a silence retreat where no one talks to each other for a week. Or when she wanted to find a rural church with "descendants of the Gullah people" (?). She does find an African-American congregation, where the woman who gives the opening prayer has a voice that sounds like "the sea that carried her ancestors here on those slave ships" (176). That... seemed weird to me. Would you describe my voice as sounding like the train that brought my Danish ancestors here?
I enjoyed the part in "Dancing With the Sacred" where Barber contemplates the childrearing memories in her home: "I look at [...] the Persian carpet with its blue stain where our son Christopher spilled a bucket of blue paint when he was two. My eyes linger on the sandstone hearth where our son Brad fell one time and split open his head, which had to be stitched together in the emergency room. Then my eyes brush past the bookcase with its many volumes of books, psychological tomes, scriptures, all of which are supposed to haveb answers. The leather wing chair that has been peppered with the point of darts thrown when I, Mother, wasn't looking and before I, Mother, hid the darts in a secret place" (107). She deftly maneuvers around post-Mormon bitterness in "At the Cannery."
The essays have some repetition of ideas between them because many were originally published in other venues, across a span of many years. Sometimes this repetition seems indulgently introspective. There's even an essay where Barber reflects on a letter to the editor where a reader says they're tired of Barber talking about herself so much. I know that all these essays weren't originally meant to be read so close together. But I felt a little tired of Barber's introspection on the same themes that didn't seem to go anywhere. That said, she writes in a lovely way.
Barber is well-travelled, and my middle-class sensibilities always bristle a little at travel writing. Are you trying to show off how rich and cultured you are? No, she is not. Several stories that could easily turn into an eat-pray-love-esque narrative of only finding spirituality in other traditions are upended by Barber's way of finding spiritual meaning in all faiths--not just in the Mormon sacrament meetings of her youth and reflective middle age, but also in the services of a rural church in the south, and abroad among indigenous people. That said, sometimes her upper-middle-class existence is difficult to get away from, like when she describes going to a silence retreat where no one talks to each other for a week. Or when she wanted to find a rural church with "descendants of the Gullah people" (?). She does find an African-American congregation, where the woman who gives the opening prayer has a voice that sounds like "the sea that carried her ancestors here on those slave ships" (176). That... seemed weird to me. Would you describe my voice as sounding like the train that brought my Danish ancestors here?
I enjoyed the part in "Dancing With the Sacred" where Barber contemplates the childrearing memories in her home: "I look at [...] the Persian carpet with its blue stain where our son Christopher spilled a bucket of blue paint when he was two. My eyes linger on the sandstone hearth where our son Brad fell one time and split open his head, which had to be stitched together in the emergency room. Then my eyes brush past the bookcase with its many volumes of books, psychological tomes, scriptures, all of which are supposed to haveb answers. The leather wing chair that has been peppered with the point of darts thrown when I, Mother, wasn't looking and before I, Mother, hid the darts in a secret place" (107). She deftly maneuvers around post-Mormon bitterness in "At the Cannery."
The essays have some repetition of ideas between them because many were originally published in other venues, across a span of many years. Sometimes this repetition seems indulgently introspective. There's even an essay where Barber reflects on a letter to the editor where a reader says they're tired of Barber talking about herself so much. I know that all these essays weren't originally meant to be read so close together. But I felt a little tired of Barber's introspection on the same themes that didn't seem to go anywhere. That said, she writes in a lovely way.
July 19, 2022
Every essay in Phyllis Barber’s The Precarious Walk speaks to me about what it means to be human—to experience success and failure, faith and doubt, love and loss, to search for the divine and struggle with unresolvable questions.
Phyllis Barber writes graceful, descriptive prose. Each word, each metaphor is deftly chosen. At the same time, her writing is meticulously honest—and courageous. She uses no writerly veils to protect her vulnerability.
When you join Phyllis Barber on this extraordinary walk, you’ll cross the globe and land in surprising places. You’ll wander the desert and feel your body turn to sand. You’ll confront the colossal power of the Hoover Dam, braid a sweetgrass basket, emerge in tears from a humble Gullah church, work on an assembly line to fill bottles of shampoo, dance with a shaman. You’ll dance for the pure joy of dancing. And one by one, you’ll peel away the layers of your being until you come right down to the core.
Then, when you urge your friends to read this book, too, you’ll have such rich experiences to share.
Phyllis Barber writes graceful, descriptive prose. Each word, each metaphor is deftly chosen. At the same time, her writing is meticulously honest—and courageous. She uses no writerly veils to protect her vulnerability.
When you join Phyllis Barber on this extraordinary walk, you’ll cross the globe and land in surprising places. You’ll wander the desert and feel your body turn to sand. You’ll confront the colossal power of the Hoover Dam, braid a sweetgrass basket, emerge in tears from a humble Gullah church, work on an assembly line to fill bottles of shampoo, dance with a shaman. You’ll dance for the pure joy of dancing. And one by one, you’ll peel away the layers of your being until you come right down to the core.
Then, when you urge your friends to read this book, too, you’ll have such rich experiences to share.
July 19, 2022
I highly recommend this book because of its vivid description of the desert in Nevada contrasted with the green farmland in Idaho where her parents lived. The author takes the reader on a rich physical and spiritual journey in this book.
Kate Handley
Kate Handley
July 14, 2022
Every sentence is vivid and beautifully crafted. I greatly enjoyed the essays, and several I contemplated days later.
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May 10, 2023Essays. Hoover Dam. Idaho. Family. Finding God.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews