Walk on Water: A Memoir

By Lorian Hemingway

Book Overview

From catfishing as a young girl in the red clay waters of Mississippi, to deep-sea fishing in the Florida Keys with her grandfather's younger brother, Leicester, Lorian Hemingway has spent a large part of her life with a fishing rod in her hand. Fishing was a passion that would sustain her even as the burden of a broken family and her own alcoholism threatened to overcome her. WALK ON WATER is a poignant and powerful memoir about loss, recovery, coping with the family you are born into, and making a family of your own. But above all it is a homage to fishing - its ability to bind people, to challenge, and ultimately to heal. Full of dry wit and keen appreciation for the absurdities of life, Lorian Hemingway sees fishing as more than simply a metaphor for her life; it is her own psychic barometer. By turns moving, raw, wry, and hilarious, WALK ON WATER is a stirring memoir by a woman who, like her quarry, is full of fight and life.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684822555
• ISBN13: 9780684822556
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Wit, Charm, and Guile

This is a penetrating story written gracefully and honestly by a courageous woman. Its compelling and essential messages are delivered with exquisite subtlety, so that our appreciation for the earth, for the people in our lives who lift us, for the waters that cleanse and renew us, and ultimately, for ourselves, is heightened and sharpened by each flowing page. What's more, Hemingway's Southern wit, charm, and guile make this book a heck of a lot of fun to read.

the best I've read all year!

WOW! I didn't buy this book expecting much. Yes, I knew it was written by the granddaughter of the Ernest Hemingway and yes, I know it was about 'fishing'....but I really had no idea. Really..no idea how this woman's words would grab me. Knowing that she lives in the same city where I work, I'm hoping to one day stumble across her and just tell her how much impact this book had on me. A co-worker just went through alcohol de-tox and this book gave me some vague notion of what he went through. Thanks for that! I'm not a fisherwoman....but I love fish and I work with dead fish parts daily as a science-lady, and this book is full of fish-wisdom, honesty and beautiful, true words. This book is full of all that. Humor, honesty and love. Again, WOW!

A beautifully written life story of hope and redempemtion

For anyone who has ever witnessed a loved one do the slow dance with alcoholism, Lorian Hemingway's memoir is waiting for you. Yet another lesson that life is best described with four letter words: love, hate, hope and dirt. I laughed out loud at her hilarious drug hazed antics and cringed as she began her long drawn out fall. Her honesty is astounding: no regrets, no finger pointing, no pass off of responsibility of her actions. Thank you, Lorian, for this memorable book.

This is a great survivor story

The book was recommended to me by a friend and I thought it would be a great lazy day reading book. Was I wrong! Once I started, I couldn't put it down. The book grabs your soul from the beginning and by the end, you can't believe it's over. It iis truly the ultimate in survivor stories and it proves the adage.."What does not kill you, will make you stronger." Obviously, the author is (at the end) a stronger, resiliant woman .

IT HIT ME LIKE A SLOW BULLET

To coin a phrase from my favorite song by SADE. Lorian's book is sane, warm, wise and she uses elegant, simple sentences to describe her difficult life, from diapers to a grown woman who has earned her very own "rite of passage." If the Pulitzer Prize group doesn't come to her door, I'll know the whole program is fixed! Such "stunning" and honest writing happens with one in ten million books! Written like an Oxford University scholar, with street smarts! This is the ultimate in the dysfunction family survivor story. Carole Hemingway