Product Description

It looks like just another week ahead. Then out of the blue Ramble's husband ends their marriage over lunch and disappears. With no rent money and her world in shreds, she is forced to reconsider everything she's ever been taught by her screwy relatives, unreliable friends and wayward criminal connections. Should she hide in life's slipstream, or has the moment come to break free? "When to Walk" is an astonishing debut, lit up with hope and unexpected laughter.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #421581 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
"By far the best novel I've read this year. Rebecca is a genius." SCARLETT THOMAS "Clever, comical and unpredictable, When to Walk took me inside the mind of a woman half-way between stupor and crack-up, a mind in an odd equilibrium, half appalled and half wonderstruck by existence. I love the way the narrator thinks. She's clever, obtuse, pliant, stubborn, solemn, funny, easy-going, angry; a teasing creation." TIM PEARS"

The Scotsman 20.01.07
"an intriguing voice, cleverly constructed and refreshing. Gowers
is one to watch."

Scarlett Thomas
"As darkly funny as Sylvia Plath and as eccentric as George
Saunders. Gowers is a genius."

Customer Reviews

An astonishing debut
When to Walk is a fantastic read, but you wouldn't know it from a back-cover blurb or review synopsis: We're told that Ramble's marriage suddenly ends over lunch, her husband calling her an "autistic vampire", how does she go on, blah blah blah. One is forced to (rightly) wonder: Surely this isn't compelling stuff? Is there really anything original left to say on this subject?

What's most surprising is what the blurbs DON'T say: namely, how extraordinarily FUNNY the book is! Ramble, deaf in one ear and with "a dysfunctional pelvis", has a mind that's both brilliant and bent; her attention to detail is almost panoptical, and her tendency towards digression, reflection, and bewildering interpretation is no less hysterical than it is astounding. Her internal dialogue can make the strangest sidesteps - as when the sudden appearance of someone surprises her, and she promptly recalls the earliest OED citation (c. 1513) of the word "wow".

This is the tenor of the novel's narration, and you'll either love it or hate it. The lunchtime pronouncement is a clear illustration, as it's NOT what the husband said, so much as her instant rewording: "He didn't put it like this, didn't use either of the words I'm about to use, but I found he was telling me that in the person of his wife, I have degraded into an autistic vampire." She's incredibly intelligent, possibly gifted, hopelessly internal in her workings, and one gets the sense of her being slightly surprised by most everything - if only for a second. At one point her husband complains that she spends too much time inside her own head, and we're annoyed to concede that he might have a point. (Not that this makes him any less of a bastard.)

The novel takes place over a single week - each of the seven chapters comprising a single day - and, given the kind of story it is, doesn't have the greatest amount of plot. This has seemingly frustrated some readers, but I had no quarrel with that fact; Ramble's character and voice are such a singular mixture of ridiculous and affecting, that my only complaint was that it ended at all: I gladly would have read many more weeks' worth of her strange and comical misadventures.

When to Walk is Rebecca Gowers' first novel, and it's an astonishing debut. I'll be anxiously awaiting her second.

Not that good!
A difficult read but for the wrong reasons. The character of Ramble is exactly that, a rambler. Good to see disabilities and mental health issues being so well dealt with; however I didn't think it was particularly well written or that interesting.

The book is set like a diary but not like Bridget Jones as the blurb states (thank god!). The reader is introduced to the week after Ramble's husband announces he is leaving her. The rest is quite fantastical and you will get a little lost off!

A slow walk through someone's mind
Ramble's husband tells her their marriage is over and walks out the same day, this leaves her with many unanswered questions, not least of which, how she will pay the rent.

What follows is a slow meander through her thoughts, whether they be about her marriage, or about her grandmother with dementia, why the couple downstairs keep arguing, the meaning of photographs she has seen or why so many pigeons have missing toes.

There are funny snippets in this book, but it did leave me feeling slightly unsatisfied. Nothing much happens, and whilst this is OK if you are totally absorbed in the main character that just didn't happen for me with this novel.

Interesting, just not amazing.