Walking on Air

By R.S. Jones

Book Overview

William Addams is dying. Controlling, mercurial, and estranged from his family, he is consumed by the fear that he'll be abandoned by Henry and Susan, his closest friends, the only people on whom he can rely. What he wants is for their faithfulness to last until they take him home to his beloved house to die. But as William's condition worsens, it becomes apparent that his expectations of devotion and loyalty involve not simply a loving commitment but the virtual handing over of his friends' vitality and independence; indeed, William covets their very lives. Filled with penetrating insights and dazzling beauty, Walking on Air explores the shadowy, often disturbing parameters of devotion, demonstrating its inevitable limits as well as its astounding powers of transformation.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060511311
• ISBN13: 9780060511319
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Tragic and poignant but surprisingly good read

I'm somewhat surprised about how little noise this novel creates among gay and lesbian reading community. The book was released in late October 2002 and no reviews are posted on here. Anyway, I stumbled across this elegantly-covered novel at a local store, flipped over several pages and decided to adopt it for the holiday reading list. The book was both revealing and compelling from the beginning: Forty-year-old William Addams is dying of the incurable epidermics. Cynical and estranged from his family, William is consumed and burdened by the fear that he will be abandoned by lover Henry and best friend Susan. As William's illness worsens, he struggles with fear of dying, battles with the thoughts of being maimed, and on top of that fear of losing his cloest friends. What William wants is for Henry and Susan to persevere until they take him home to his beloved house by the coast to die. William's desperation focuses on testing his friends' loyalty and playing with their sympathy. From page one you will already have known the outcome of the story, yet the author has chronicled the course of the disease in a very humane fashion. It is as if we can feel William's physical pain and experience the pang of his fear. The book is disturbing to read as you go on, but it is filled with dazzling beauty. The prose is cut-to-the-point. 4.1 stars.