Book In Review

         The Rope Walk is an ecclectic collection of people and problems.  It is at times; sad, cautiously hopeful, bittersweet, heartbreaking, endearing, angering, pittiful, and haunting.  Ms. Carrie Brown wrote a book that sticks with you in your spirit…because she knows how to write and explore human relationships.

          One of the main characters is a motherless child named, Alice.  Alice is a treasure who is caught between an innocent, sheltered childhood and an abrupt jolt into a reality that is changing on all sides.  She is about to meet a childhood friend who she at times, admires, wants to protect, clings to, and at all times, comes to love very much; his name is Theo. 

          Theo is a mystery that slowly unravels.  He is bi-racial.  He appears abandoned, he is living with grandparents who don’t know him and one of which doesn’t want to.   Alice doesn’t understand how anyone could be prejudiced against another for the color of their skin.   He has suffered neglect by all adults who should have been caring for him.  He is a walking wounded child…who tries to live out loud in spite of it all by learning about the world around him.

          Together, Alice and Theo take on a chore and a journey of volunteer caregiving for a man named Kenneth who is an artist who is dying of AIDS.  Kenneth has come to live with his adult sister who is living in a self designed prison with some sort of phobia where she lives in fear inside her home stacked to the ceilings with walls of hoarded, dirty items. 

         Alice and Theo form a bond with Kenneth.  They share the love of adventure through books with him.  They plan a surprise for him to escape his confinement because of his health.  That surprise ends badly; but, there was a written communication that never gets passed along which could have saved them all some heartache and seperation.  

         The book explores compassion, selfishness, volunterrism, communication and awareness.  I really liked this book…but i do have to confess, it both saddened me and at the same time…showed me that if people want to…they have the ability to positively impact the lives of others if they would only take a risk and reach out to do so! 

         This book was copyrighted in 2007 by Thomson Gale.  You can see their website at:  www.gale.com/thorndikepress or www.thomson.com .