Walk the Darkness Down

by Daniel Magariel

From the author George Saunders hailed as “an exciting new presence in American writing,” a stunning novel about a couple trying to rebuild their lives in their deteriorating coastal town.

Up all night, Marlene drives the highways and back roads near her home in hopes that some landmark will spark an image of her daughter, one untainted by years of grief. Her husband Les steams out to sea in his effort to cope. He is a commercial fisherman on a boat staffed up with desperate loners and shape-shifting friends obliterating their bodies in two-week shifts of crushing labor. The couple keep their pain hidden from each other, and most of their lives separate.

But as Les comes under threat on the trawler and Marlene's drives lead her into a tangled friendship with a local sex worker whom she becomes determined to protect, the couple is forced to acknowledge that they can no longer face their troubles alone.

A powerful descent into an ink-black whirlpool of obsession and isolation on the turbulent eastern seaboard, Walk the Darkness Down is an unflinching portrayal of love in the margins of twenty-first century America. It is a fierce, beautiful testimonial to a couple's struggle to survive both the past and the present, and to chart a new path into the future.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary

224 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2023

About the author

Daniel Magariel is an author from Kansas City. His work has appeared in Granta, Lit Hub, Salt Hill, Stop Smiling, and Issue Magazine, among others. One of the Boys, his first novel, was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and Amazon Best Book of 2017, and was published in twelve countries. He has a BA from Columbia University, as well as an MFA from Syracuse University, where he was a Cornelia Carhart Fellow. He currently lives in New York with his wife.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite writing!!!
Meticulous prose!!!
The sheer joy of reading a great writer is a pure gift!!!
This new favorite book is fantastic!!!
Full review soon!!!

Review:

LONG …..but NO SPOILERS….

“Walk the Darkness Down”
is a book I hate to say goodbye to….
……with characters I want to spend more time with,
dialogue I want to eat — and sentences that could reduce me to tears or belly laugh or simply feel the wonderment.

There’s a lot of unexpected in it, sometimes I thought I knew exactly where the story was going, other times I was blown away by what was going on.
Daniel Magariel took a story that ‘could’ have been just another universal story — but added exceptional uniqueness — on land and at sea. Its very engrossing.

Daniel traces two people who love each other but who perpetually press each other’s buttons. Communicating with each other was not their optimum superlative skill.
But….funny sometimes (for us readers) .

The primary and supporting characters (the fishing crew members) brightly illuminates the darkness — leaving each reader to take away various messages about marriage, working through difficulties, loss, betrayal, survival, companionship, work pressures, desire, expectations, communications complexities, and other revelation subtitles.

Les and Marlene might not have seemed like the perfect couple ….
but reading between the lines - the fights - the silence - the distance - Les was smitten by his wife … and I was pretty sure Marlene was smitten about Les.
They were surviving — in the only way each one knew how to do: from the death of their daughter, Angie. They often quarreled but we sense the anger is distorted.
Marlene’s anger -especially- was covering up grief.
Les, on the other hand, felt so unworthy from every angle ….I hurt for him, his private grief, differently than I did Marlene. It felt like Les was endlessly chasing after the ‘Best Behavior’ badge ….failing over and over.
But …. I felt the sorrow for both, Marlene and Les. Sorrow was always under the surface, but not that far under.

Marlene, perhaps impulsive, impractical….brings different sex-workers home ….to feed them, let them shower…..perhaps clings to the notion that unbearable rifts can be patched.
Marlene simply has an unyielding longing to ‘protect’.
One specific sex worker, Josie, began spending the night over at Marlene’s house regularly when Les was out at sea scalloping with his fishing crew. Les could be gone for one or two weeks at a time.

Josie, rail thin, could gulp a huge meal down, then still eat a gallon of ice cream. Her life misfortunes , somehow didn’t kill her strength or self-pride. I liked her her spunky disposition.
Marlene and Josie spent their evenings together cooking, eating, and drinking wine. They talked. They started to get to know each other better by playing a ‘Me-You’ game…..slowly trusting each other with personal truths.
Josie slept over often (rather than return to the Hotel Villages where she lived will Bill, quasi-boyfriend-pimp).
On the days when Les returned home (for short stays), Marlene didn’t feel obliged to tell Les about Josie…..until much later in the book when Marlene needed help from Les.
Help, Les was grateful to give Marlene help…..
……regardless of his mixed emotions.

The storytelling out at sea — scalloping —was a combination of hilarity between the crew members as well as graphic scary from the elements and an accident.

The fishing crew nicknamed Les *Stray*…….(a thrilling nickname that any wife would love for her husband- ha!).
Each of the crew had nicknames [John Wayne, China, Booby, Monk Man, and Hoover].
I thoroughly enjoyed the crew - ‘guy bonding’ - and the crazy gripping descriptions out at sea….

I equally enjoyed all that was happening back at home — when Les was away — and the times he was home.
EVERYTHING about this novel was moving and entertaining. …..ordinary and extraordinary…..pristine and unpolluted.

Some excerpts….

“What made Marlene stick to your ribs? John Wayne asks”.
“Les gives the short version: I was down in Florida, working on a sport fishing boat, and she called me to tell me she was pregnant. We’d only dated a few months, but she wanted me to come home. She was, like ‘Les, shit, or get off the pot’. And I was like, ‘Well, my dear, in those terms . . . John Wayne and China, both delivered the line with him: guess I’ll shit”.
“The three of them laughed”
So did I!

“Stripped young of the illusion that the world has been conquered, charted, angled for human need, Les has always preferred the scale of life at sea. Out here bait balls, the size of football fields appear from nowhere, the water surface suddenly sparkling with tens of thousands of glistening fish. Biblical weather arrives full of portent”.

“Living for most of us isn’t like TV. It ain’t all sunshine and Shirley Temples. Most people don’t get their cherry. You’re no different. We’ve all had things taken from us”.

NOTE….
one of my favorite conversations (in a restaurant with Les and Marlene)…..about BOY SCOUTS is one of the funniest scenes I’ve read in years….(not slapstick- just damn funny)…..
I swear I thought to myself — this book is worth all its money just with this one Boy Scout chattering scene.

Another ‘tiny’ funny ….but I liked it …
…..learning about a pet lobster named Sebastian….. on a leash.

Absolutely one of my favorite books.
“Dinner Tonight?”

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words like ‘wrenching,’ ‘bleak,’ and ‘rabbity,’ came to mind while reading about this decoupled couple, Marlene and Les, who are coping with a suffocating grief. Les’ job as a scallop fisherman on a trawler is punishing, unforgiving work. He and his regular crew go by monikers that function as avatars—John Wayne, Stray, Hoover, Monk, to name some of them. This work appeals to emotionally broken individuals, allows them to focus on specific tasks to get through the day. Les withers from Marlene’s view, unable to confront the built-up resentment and unsaid words. Marlene is just as stubborn.

Both find solace attending to others, embracing dreamers and cynics alike. While Les devotes his energy to his lacerating work, Marlene befriends a young prostitute and concentrates on mothering her. Sadness pervades the narrative, as Les and Marlene tug and twist and turn on their loss. The endless highway, neon signs, empty lots, and the depthless sea. Gray people.

This is not a fun domestic adventure to engage in-- my stomach was in knots the entire time I was reading. But I was fully engaged with the embattled couple wherever they went. Their tragedy is universal and specific, I don’t want to name it in my review---(the reader gets there soon enough). Their journey is a ghost-lit rise up a mean mountain. I had to put the book down a few times in order to regain the strength to continue. I was emotionally whipped! Magariel sets a mood with such physicality that it was like swallowing a shark.

Every sentence was a distress signal of light—or its absence. And I’m sure this passage I’m about to quote is popular to repeat. It’s just so apt! “My grandma used to call people’s pain their darkness. She’d say you got to abide with your darkness as if it were a scared child that wakes up in the middle of the night and needs to be walked back down to bed…You got to walk the darkness down.” It’s a harsh read, but it’s not without hope and capacity for redemption.

Thank you to Bloomsbury for sending me an ARC for review. A devastating read.

[Claire Fuller]

Marlene's and Les's marriage is only just surviving after the death of their daughter. He goes out with his buddies working a fishing boat, and Marlene brings home prostitutes to feed and look after them. Both of them are doing what they can to cope. It's Magariel's luminous prose that brings these two lonely people to life. Just wonderful writing.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

“My grandma used to call people’s pain their darkness. She’d say you got to abide with your darkness as if it were a scared child that wakes up in the middle of the night and needs to be walked back to bed…You got to walk the darkness down.”


Marlene and Les reside in a world of hurt. They are married, but they just can’t get it right and their marriage is dimmed with failures of understanding and kindness. Their daughter, Angie, died years ago and although it takes us some time to know the circumstances, we do know that neither of them has been able to surmount the unthinkable loss.

Isolated in every way possible – by location and by choice – each of them struggles to find ways to dull the pain. Les is part of the crew of a fishing boat , where he can lose himself in the punishing scalloping work and self-annihilating exhaustion. There he forms his own family of sort with other damaged men who are referred to only by their nicknames. (Les is called “Stray” and others are John Wayne, Booby, Monk Man and so forth.) And Marlene? During the lengthy times when Les is gone, she trolls the Villas, and picks up young prostitutes, whom she takes home and tends to and feeds. One of them is Josie, a teenager who may be fulfilling Marlene’s fantasies of a lost daughter. Both Les and Marlene strive to redefine the word “family.”

Les and Marlene are two desperate loners who should have drifted from each other almost from the start, but Daniel Magariel brilliantly creates a kind of love story – two people who, at their core, love each other but don’t know how to show it. In doing so, he creates something quite unique. The writing is luminous, often poignant and in some spots, unexpectedly witty. I’ve never been on a fishing boat, but the authenticity of the scenes placed me right there.

At its core, this is a book about survival against all odds. I am grateful to Bloomsbury for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very atmospheric story about a couple who endured a horrific life-event and are trying to come to terms with their relationship for the remainder of their lives. It doesn’t help that his job requires him to be away for weeks at a time and that she is stubborn and unforgiving. It’s definitely different than most books I’ve read. Very uncomfortable feelings while reading but isn’t that a sign of experiential art? Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

[Emily Coit · Rating 5 out of 5]

From this novel’s first perfect sentence, we are plunged into the biting depths of Les and Marlene’s fractured marriage. Wrecked by tragedy, prone to neglect, haunted by all that remains unsaid between them, and struggling to get their partnership off the rocks, Daniel Magariel’s characters are so real they seem to bead up from the page.
The prose is at once tender yet violent, elegant yet coiled, and peppered with lyrical flourishes beautiful enough to slay the soul. The extraordinary quality of Magariel’s writing is further enhanced by his undaunted portrayal of loss, love, loneliness, friendship and the undying hope that burns behind it all.
This is a novel that hums with the quiet, resolute belief that we can find resurrection buried deep within our grief, if only we are brave enough to look for it.
Gorgeously conjured and evocative, peerless and unforgettable, Walk the Darkness Down is that rare and wondrous thing: a world unto itself.

[Christopher Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magariel has honed his craft so brilliantly, from his first offering, One of the Boys (2017)! I absolutely loved this so much! The sentences he lays down are truly one of poetic caliber. This flowed so well, that although I wanted a bit more, it ended at the right spot and the right time. It is heartbreaking. The characters were ones of sadness, and despair, and like One of the Boys, you truly find yourself in the lives of these wonderfully written people.

This book deserves more recognition. It is a literary achievement, and I will be eagerly awaiting for his next novel!

[James Horn · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW. My first ever NetGalley read, and what a treat. Thank you to them for the ARC, it will likely be my favorite read of the year. I’d read Magariel’s One of the Boys when it came out and loved it, and was defensive of it when some reviewers chastised it, for its grim portrayal of childhood trauma. I am already equally as defensive of this book about grief.

To me this is an outstanding work of fiction. It oozes style, draws you into its world, and delights with prose on par with any of the greats. I’m sure there will be detractors who will criticize the reality of some moments in the book, but I preemptively counter that reality is stranger than fiction and I think this book does a phenomenal job of capturing that essence, while still remaining grounded.

The greatest strength of this book is it’s pace. At times it crackles with excitement, and slowly smolders others, breathes a hitched sigh, or one of relief. I couldn’t put it down. I am also so impressed with the quality of writing here. There are moments where Magariel reminds me of all my favorites. Denis Johnson’s internal darkness, Cormac McCarthy’s impending doom, Shirley Jackson’s witty but realistic dialog, Joy Williams knack for brevity, to name a handful. These are all just references, and the book never feels like emulation. Here Magariel writes of the blue collar set in such an empathetic way I was reminded of Robert Olmstead’s River Dogs, an out of print book I enjoyed very much. Yet with all these references, there is something that sets it apart from them making it it’s own.

I hope this book puts Daniel Magariel in the conversation for prestigious literary awards and that it finds the success it deserves. It is a perfect balance of form and function; It’s exciting, and heartbreaking, and channels the darkness we can never quite grasp, for it’s just out of reach.

[S Kellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story follows the turbulent relationship between Les and Marlene, a couple divided by the loss of their child. Les leaves Marlene at home for long jobs on a deep sea fishing vessel, while Marlene seeks the companionship of vulnerable and exploited young women.

A large portion of the book shows Les' life at sea and delves into various complicated relationships between the men on board. This aspect of the novel was unlike any I've read before. I particularly enjoyed the moments of quiet Les had on board and the relationship with his friend, John Wayne. The details about fishing and living at sea felt realistic and enriched this story for me. The inclusion of addictions in this side of the story was at times difficult to read. Marlene's relationship with the young woman in the story, Josie, was quite touching and disturbing at the same time.

A lot of this book was emotionally challenging to read. Parts of the story were so troubling, it was hard for me continue with it. However, the climax of the story made it all worth it and was so surprisingly beautiful I was a little overcome by it. Any issues I had got left behind in its wake.

[Heather Joyner · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The closer you come to another human being, the farther you venture into vast and mystifying waters.”

This book is the most beautiful meditation on grief I’ve ever read. It is filled with such sadness that I had to put it aside at times, but Les and Marlene are such wholly drawn characters that I was completely moved by their anguish.

[Arlette · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up. Stayed in anticipation through most of book
Waiting for the other shoe to drop

[Jessica Dekker · Rating 3 out of 5]

~ Out 8/1 by @bloomsburypublishing



Here comes another #jessdekkerramblingreview

The story opens w/ an argument, we’re thrust right into the depths of this marriage that is obviously struggling with a loss (of their daughter). You can feel the immense loss within the first two pages.

“…that’s when he will see his wife through the wound and rot of loss. But right now, with white-rimmed nostrils and a handle half gone, he is free to hate her with the force of his soul.”

Atmospheric writing; author really delivers you in the depths of this coastal town with his descriptions. A quick read as well, lots of short, sharp dialogue.

We start after the marriage has suffered from the loss of the daughter, and we get flashbacks to before. To when they first met, to when their daughter was born. We follow them, each, into their struggles. We see how each of them deals w/ their grief separately. Marlene searching for her daughter in the sex workers she tries to mother on the streets; Les loses himself in his work at sea.

….weird, cringey banter..Eyes kind of glaze over and I feel myself wanting to skim when we are back on the boat w/ Les and his crew…eyeballs deep in the gutting of fish, lots of these details didn’t really seem to serve the story in anyway.

We find out later on in the story what exactly happened to their daughter, and while that scene definitely pulled at my mama heartstrings, I found myself having a hard time feeling emotionally pulled to this book. I wanted to love it so much more, but it unfortunately fell a little flat for me. I wanted a little more depth in the characters, they felt a bit surface level to me. BUT, if you look at the reviews on GR, I see five star after star, so I might be one of the few.

“My grandma used to call people’s pain their darkness…you got to walk the darkness down”

Feels like: heart racing anxiety; drunk off a bottle of whiskey; crying under the umbrella of candlelight; fingernails dug into your skin; a hole of loss in the pit of your stomach; empty tear ducts; feeling adrift in a coastal town; cigarette stained fingertips.

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁, 𝗲𝘅𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀.

Marlene spends her nights when her husband Leslie “Les” (a commercial fisherman) is away for weeks at a time, driving around town searching empty parking lots and the shadows for women (sex workers) she picks up and remakes into young girls again. Memories of her daughter, Angie, flicker in the old places, leaving her wishing to 'be her audience' once again, but all the remains is the pain, the grief. The girls are a secret she keeps from her husband. Les's escape is with his crew, his 'family'. It is a reprieve, a break from the fighting and misery of being with Marlene, but it's a hard job. Both are full of memories, time spent with their child, when they were still a family of three. Memories of how they used to be, the moments of tenderness spill over, but there is so much anger and loss now. And blame, endless amounts of blame.

There was a time when Marlene and Angie would be there to greet Les when he would come ashore, much as they would see him off before he was away for long periods. Now Marlene dodges him when he is back, despite being swallowed in loneliness, she cannot bear their old routine. The two are on a merry-go-round of pain, remorse, mistakes and regret. Each longing for relief from their sorrows, and yet unable to let go long enough to find comfort in one another. Les blames himself for the distance between them, knowing it began because of him and all his leaving.

Marlene becomes close to Josie, one of the girls she cleans up, who makes her home in The Villas, assuring Marlene it is the only home she has ever had that's her own. A strange word, home, with the seedy clients and the control her partner Bill holds over her. Marlene wants to escape all the crushing memories of her daughter, but there is danger in the hopes she has of rescuing Josie from her situation. She is desperate for Les to her her with a dream she has for the three of them, but is it possible to mend their marriage through the salvation of another person?

There are bigger threats than can be found at The Villas, Les faces his own possible destruction on the water. Waves crash over them all, past and present. Will they ever be able to find their way back to the love they once shared and face the wounds of the past? Les's work can be dark too, it's not an easy life dealing creatures beneath the sea any more than it is dealing with the creatures on the land, like Marlene's women do. This is a grim story that has the hope of healing, I could nearly smell the ocean. There are no clear outlines of good and bad, mostly just damaged people trying not to drown. Yes, a decent read.

Publication Date: August 1, 2023 Available Now

Bloomsbury USA

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautiful, brilliantly tight, heart-breaking, and hard to put down.

To me, Marlene’s story is a perfect rendering of how love attacks the boundary between reality and delusion. In Les, we see the perpetual mystery of men and fathers – that somehow it’s easier to do difficult things than to do the simple ones. They can build a door again and again, they can go to sea for weeks and battle the world, but the pure act of holding a baby’s head to their heart – maybe it’s too easy, in a way. Maybe hard things feel like the easy way out because they are the kinds of things we are taught to do, painstakingly, the kinds of things we can hope to master. The way this book is written feels like a testament to that idea. Below the elaborate design of the sentences and the intricate idiosyncrasies of the characters is a cutting simplicity which feels like bravery or triumph. The story is profoundly earnest and clear. Its sincerity is both unpretentious and extremely self-confident.

The dialogue was amazing. I thought Josie was brilliant – the girl who unwittingly stands on the line between Marlene and Les’s deepest secrets while simultaneously sharing everything she can think to say about herself. The way the author animates people through their speech, I could almost see Josie sitting next to me in my peripheral vision as I read through her babbling paragraphs. Generally I thought the prose was just relentlessly good. Magariel paints the landscape, the seasons and the sea like a Great American Novelist. It is dark and heartbreaking, but not bleak or harrowing. I think the beauty of it is too uplifting for those descriptors.

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh wow, I’m the first to review this on GR. Nice.
Okay, so Magariel isn’t what you might call prolific. Which is to say his last novel came out years ago. It was good, too. I liked it and requested this one off of Netgalley on the strength of its predecessor. But to be honest, this book didn’t do much for me.
The quality is undeniable, so it the style. It’s a sort of really vivid, down to the bone, slice of life story rendered in a tough, rough and gruff minimalistic narrative.
Whose life is the author slicing? A couple who lost a young daughter. A couple that lives small depressing lives in a small depressing town, barely getting by financially and emotionally. The man choses to lose himself in his work (commercial fishing and boy, there’s a LOT of it in the novel, knee deep in fish guts) and the woman strikes up savior-style relationships with local prostitutes. Everyone’s coping the best they can, trying to find a way to move forward.
That’s basically the entire novel. It isn’t very long. Some good writing goes a long way. The book it is objectively good if you’re into that sort of thing. And if not, well, it’s a really quick read. Thanks Netgalley.

[Linda G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brutal fishing book which has a tragic personal story. Les and Marlene mourn their young daughter's death in separate ways, neither of which is working. Les is out for weeks on a scalloping boat with his friends who are a bunch of real scamps and when he is home arguing is the main activity. Marlene begins bringing hookers home to try and help them or rather herself. Their love is still hanging on a thread. Marlene’s parents who live in Florida own an oceanside piece of property 8 hours away from the couple’s northeastern home. Marlene feels she and Les should move there with one of her unfortunate young teens, Josie.
The scene shifts to the seaside house. You get the definite feeling that you’re going to discover more about the dead daughter. Things go well for awhile till Les suddenly leaves. Josie is not happy being away from her boyfriend, the pimp. She wants to leave too. Then some shocking things are revealed, more violence occurs and it becomes a hard book to put down.

[Beth Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written book about the aftermath of tragedy and the ways that we humans deal with the it in our relationships. The characters are gritty and not always like-able, but you immediately feel a connection to their pain and thus an understanding of the choices they make. As a Cape May native, I enjoyed learning about the scalloping boat culture and fishing industry and the references to the local scene. Also found it interesting that Daniel intertwined the effects of climate change on native species as a way for the characters to find connection. This book was not always easy to read because it deals with such a heavy topic, but it was one I feel I am better for having read.

[John Beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another beautiful book from one of the finest young writers around. Dripping with poise and purpose, Magariel's landscapes, though spartan, shout and scream the unsaid. Two characters whose restlessness is so deep and voluminous that it would be folly for the reader to resist the urge to a dive straight in and swim ecstatically in the infinite well of their human longing. The reader will be rewarded though for such an act as they will arrive reborn and cleansed of their own pain, with the lesson learnt that at our heart we are all survivors who hurt. Cannot wait for the third. Bravo A+

[Novel Visits · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC of this book.)

I'm a fan of dark fiction and I loved Magariel's debut, but this one was just too bleak for me. His writing was atmospheric, the imagery sublime, so at times I was drawn in, but overall I found this story a struggle to get through. While I felt compassion for the characters (all of whom live lonely, depressing lives), in the end I couldn't wait to be out of their sad world. The small measure of hope at end was too little, too late for me.

[Jennifer S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marlene and Les have a deteriorating marriage, strained after the death of their only daughter. They live in an unnamed small town on the Atlantic coast, where Les works as a commercial fisherman, gone for long periods of fishing with a crew that functions as an alternative family (with plenty of family-type drama). Marlene eases her pain by picking up prostitutes and taking them home just to feed and talk and return - until she starts to bond with one of them.

I'm clearly in the minority here, but I found this book depressingly bleak.

[Mary Lins · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Walk the Darkness Down”, by Daniel Magariel, has a riveting start! Marlene and her husband Les have a physical fight and after Les leaves their home Marlene goes out and picks up a young hooker and brings her home.

Of course, that bare-bones description doesn’t come close to describing the actual plot and mood and of this dark tale of grief and recovery.

Evocative writing, perfectly-pacing, and riveting.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very moving portrayal of a married couple burdened by the tragic loss of their young daughter as both husband and wife cope in ways that leave them emotionally and physically distant from each other. The bleak setting, a declining fishing town on the Eastern Seaboard, adds to the fragile bonds that barely hold the marriage together.

The prose is outstanding, but at times it took me out of the story, one that I was deeply invested in. Still, a very worthy read of a grieving couple trying to find their way back to each other again.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

more like a 3.5 for me - though it follows the challenges of a married couple whose young daughter dies accidently, there is too much time spent on the dad's life as a fisherman with lots of words and terms I didn't fully understand. What was interesting to me was the mom and dad's separate private process on dealing with this tragic loss. Mom takes long drives and ends up taking prostitutes to her home to nurture them while her husband is out to sea.Set on the Eastern coast.

[Stephen R · Rating 5 out of 5]

An astonishing achievement from a writer at the top of his game. Full of grit and guts and beauty, rendered beautifully through savage yet graceful prose. Magariel captures so much life, the sadness and darkness and also the light, with sentences that reverberate far beyond their original paragraph. Glorious stuff.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it possible to survive the loss of a child?

How did the book make me feel/think?

Two lives shattered by the loss of their child.

How does one recover from such a tragedy?

A mother, consumed by grief, desperately clings to any remnants of her daughter, searching endlessly for solace. Self-hatred consumes her as she struggles to find a way out of the darkness.
Meanwhile, a father hides in the delusional embrace of escape, subjecting himself to the arduous realm of commercial fishing alongside a band of shattered souls.

Love seems to have vanished in the face of devastating loss.

In his haunting novel, “Walk the Darkness Down,” Daniel Magariel delves into the agonizing realities of an inescapable horror: the loss of a child. He explores the desperate yearning to reconnect and find a way to navigate the immense pain and suffering accompanying such a profound loss. It is a story that emphasizes the importance of holding onto the fragments of hope that remain as one strives to forge a path toward a future that can be endured.

In this gripping masterpiece of painfully authentic fiction, Magariel adeptly tackles a harsh truth that countless individuals must face: the struggle to carry on in the aftermath of an unspeakable tragedy.

This story cannot be deemed pleasurable; unsettling darkness looms dangerously close to our hearts at every twist and turn. Nevertheless, it serves as a poignant reminder that anguish may silently reside within our very souls, compelling us to embrace empathy and compassion as our steadfast companions on life’s unpredictable journey.

WRITTEN: 27 July 2023

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Magariel's second novel is a tour de force, poetic, brutal, and painstaking in its vision. This novel takes the reader miles out to sea, and into the most intimate quarters of a troubled marriage and the unseen straits of grief. This is a great beauty.

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to rate this one. I zipped right through it, and thought it was well-written, but I didn’t really enjoy it. Yes, the subject matter is depressing, but that’s not the reason. So, I suppose 3.5, rounded down to 3.

[Lachlan Crichton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! I absolutely loved this book! Love the writer! His first book blew me away!

[Amanda Axelsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another incredible book from an incredible author!! A must read!!

[TC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended.

Review posted at Tzer Island book blog:

https://www.tzerisland.com/bookblog/2...