Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart

November 17, 2003
Kate Talkingtree, the 57-year-old writer protagonist of Walker's latest concoction, is a lifelong seeker after enlightenment in the carnal, political and religious realms. After dreaming of a dry river, she decides to take this as a spiritual clue and makes two river-centric spiritual quests. In one, she embarks on an all-female white-water rafting trip down the Colorado River, coming home to her boyfriend, Yolo, a painter, with potentially startling news. She has decided that it is time to give up her sexual life and "enter another: the life of the virgin." Yolo, a feminist-friendly guy, takes this as well as he can. Soon Kate is off on another quest, this time in the Amazon rain forest, where she hopes to heal herself through trances induced by yagé administered by an Amazonian shaman, Armando Juarez. Yagé, a hallucinogenic beverage, is also known as Grandmother to the native peoples. Indeed, it turns out that Kate's Grandmother archetype—representing the Earth, the ancestors and those violated by patriarchy and racism—has been calling out to her. Meanwhile, Yolo, on vacation in Hawaii, encounters a transsexual Polynesian shaman, or Mahu, who charges him with the mission of giving up addictive substances. A subplot involving corporations conspiring to patent yagé creates an unintended irony: isn't the mindset that exploits native wisdom for Western corporate greed similar to the mindset that exploits native rituals for the sake of Western spiritual "healing"? Luckily, followers of the goddess, and presumably Walker's readers, are not very keen on irony. Those who retain some affection for that hopelessly outdated and patriarchal trope are advised to bypass this inflated paean to the self. 100,000 first printing;
8-city author tour.

November 15, 2003
Kate, a wealthy author and self-proclaimed seeker, is dissatisfied with the state of the world, her life, and her relationship with her latest lover, Yolo. A journey both physical and spiritual takes her down the Colorado River on a raft and eventually to a shaman's retreat in the Amazon. Along the way, she samples the tragic stories of her fellow seekers and helps them along the path to healing. In the meantime, Yolo pursues his own journey, encountering indigenous Hawaiians and meeting an old lover. Walker has some interesting insights on the power of stories and the nature of the spirit, but they are buried amid improbable situations and characters who have read too many bad books on spirituality. It is difficult to take any of the characters seriously, especially Kate, who comes across as a stereotypical rich, self-indulgent New Ager bemoaning the fate of the world but showing little evidence that she is doing anything to improve it. The author's name makes this a necessary purchase for most libraries, but readers will long for the Walker of earlier days.-Ellen Flexman, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2003
Kate, a successful author fearful of aging and uncertain about continuing her relationship with Yolo, an artist, sets off on a journey of spiritual discovery. She has been profoundly unhappy for some time, dreaming of rivers, until she takes off for rivers--the Colorado and the Amazon. Among strangers, Kate is able to distance herself from her life and her relationship. Yolo, on his own separate journey, meets a former lover, a Hawaiian woman now overweight and weighed down with the recent loss of her son to a drug overdose and a sense that she--like her son--has lost her way. Kate finds growing intimacy among a group of disparate souls who unburden themselves of their pasts under the influence of yage, a South American medicinal herb. Kate finds that the herb allows her to reveal her innermost secrets and puts her in touch with the elders. Despite their frictions, Kate and Yolo have similar reawakenings about the land as mother, overcoming personal and ethnic oppression, and dismantling barriers between the sexes, the races, and young and old. Walker's dreamlike novel incorporates the political and spiritual consciousness and emotional style for which she is known and appreciated.\par

(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)