Robert Walker - Paperback

by Corey Mesler (Author)

Robert Walker is homeless. He awakes one morning in his box to find half his face paralyzed. In anguish, he walks to mimic normality. He also walks because walking for him is life. Eventually, in opposition to his dedication to desired anonymity, he is forced to rejoin the world. The novel follows two crucial days in his journey while he traverses Memphis, encountering the familiar, the foreign, the desolate, and the joyous.

Front Jacket

I began my novel, Robert Walker, with the intention of illuminating the life of a homeless man who, through his peregrinations, would have one thing after another taken from him, an idea cadged from Nathanael West's satire, A Cool Million. But, as I began to follow the thread of his wandering I developed a real affection for Robert and his fellow dispossessed and felt that I should put satire back in its velvet case. Empathy seemed the more apropos tool.