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The Walk Home
Stevie comes from a long line of people who have cut and run. Just like he has.
Only he’s not so sure he was right to go. He’s been to London, taught himself to get by, and now he’s working as a laborer not so far from his childhood home in Glasgow. But Stevie hasn’t told his family—what’s left of them—that he’s back. Not yet.
He’s also not far from his uncle Eric, another one who left—for love this time. Stevie’s toughened himself up against that emotion. And as for his mother, Lindsey . . . well, she ran her whole life. From her father and Ireland, from her husband, and eventually from Stevie, too.
Moving between Stevie’s contemporary Glaswegian life and the story of his parents when they were young, The Walk Home is a powerful novel about the risk of love, and the madness and betrayals that can split a family. Without your past, who are you? Where does it leave you when you go against your family, turn your back on your home; when you defy the world you grew up in? If you cut your ties, will you cut yourself adrift? Yearning to belong exerts a powerful draw, and Stevie knows there are still people waiting for him to walk home.
An extraordinarily deft and humane writer, Rachel Seiffert tells us the truth about love and about hope.
Only he’s not so sure he was right to go. He’s been to London, taught himself to get by, and now he’s working as a laborer not so far from his childhood home in Glasgow. But Stevie hasn’t told his family—what’s left of them—that he’s back. Not yet.
He’s also not far from his uncle Eric, another one who left—for love this time. Stevie’s toughened himself up against that emotion. And as for his mother, Lindsey . . . well, she ran her whole life. From her father and Ireland, from her husband, and eventually from Stevie, too.
Moving between Stevie’s contemporary Glaswegian life and the story of his parents when they were young, The Walk Home is a powerful novel about the risk of love, and the madness and betrayals that can split a family. Without your past, who are you? Where does it leave you when you go against your family, turn your back on your home; when you defy the world you grew up in? If you cut your ties, will you cut yourself adrift? Yearning to belong exerts a powerful draw, and Stevie knows there are still people waiting for him to walk home.
An extraordinarily deft and humane writer, Rachel Seiffert tells us the truth about love and about hope.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
18 people are currently reading
454 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Seiffert
23 books88 followersRachel Seiffert is one of Virago’s most critically acclaimed contemporary novelists. Her first book, The Dark Room, (2001) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and made into the feature film Lore. In 2003, she was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, and in 2011 she received the EM Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Field Study, her collection of short stories published in 2004, received an award from PEN International. Her second novel, Afterwards (2007) third novel The Walk Home (2014), and fourth novel A Boy in Winter (2017), were all longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her books have been published in eighteen languages.
Seiffert’s subject is ordinary lives in extraordinary times. Her characters have included the 12-year-old daughter of an SS officer in 1945, a Polish seasonal worker on a German asparagus farm after the fall of the iron curtain, and – most recently – a young Ukrainian man faced with the choice between resistance and collaboration during the Nazi occupation.
Rachel Seiffert has taught creative writing at Goldsmiths College and Glasgow University, and delivered seminars at the Humboldt University Berlin, Manchester University, and the Faber Academy in London, amongst others; she is a returning tutor at the Arvon Foundation. Her particular interest is teaching writing in schools, delivering workshops for the East Side Side Educational Trust in Hackney, Wellington College in Berkshire, and a number of state secondaries in south east London. She is currently Writer in Residence at Haseltine School in SE26, and works with First Story at St Martin in the Fields Secondary in Tulse Hill.
Seiffert’s subject is ordinary lives in extraordinary times. Her characters have included the 12-year-old daughter of an SS officer in 1945, a Polish seasonal worker on a German asparagus farm after the fall of the iron curtain, and – most recently – a young Ukrainian man faced with the choice between resistance and collaboration during the Nazi occupation.
Rachel Seiffert has taught creative writing at Goldsmiths College and Glasgow University, and delivered seminars at the Humboldt University Berlin, Manchester University, and the Faber Academy in London, amongst others; she is a returning tutor at the Arvon Foundation. Her particular interest is teaching writing in schools, delivering workshops for the East Side Side Educational Trust in Hackney, Wellington College in Berkshire, and a number of state secondaries in south east London. She is currently Writer in Residence at Haseltine School in SE26, and works with First Story at St Martin in the Fields Secondary in Tulse Hill.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
August 18, 2014
From Shelf Awareness (7/18/14):
There are stories that scream and stories that whimper. Rachel Seiffert's The Walk Home somehow does both and neither--a mostly quiet narrative punctuated by moments of unrest. Set in the years following the Irish Troubles, the novel moves among three generations: Brenda, a middle-aged grandmother, and her brother Eric, the family's black sheep; Brenda's son Graham, who married Lindsey in the wake of an unexpected pregnancy; and Stevie, Lindsey and Graham's only son, whose childhood plays out amidst family tensions rising toward the boiling point.
Though the events unfold in Scotland, the family's Irish heritage simmers beneath the surface. When Eric, Graham's long-ostracized uncle, begins to discuss his biblical artwork with Lindsey, her initial response is tight-lipped. Slowly, Seiffert reveals that there are certain topics that are as explosive as bombs in this fictional world: religion, the past, the brutality of previous generations. Even without a full knowledge of this period, a reader will find enough breadcrumbs to follow. Seiffert's contextual hints are subtle, best detected in her characters: Lindsey's depression belies her disgust at the way old patterns replay, generation after generation, leaving familial fissures in their wake; Stevie's wary interactions with neighborhood boys prove his canniness is evolutionary, protecting him against foes that might attack at the sight of a symbolic patch sewn on his jeans or the mention of a last name. In the low-income setting, allegiances are built on dead relatives and everlasting grudges. For a novel so quiet and spare, The Walk Home's aftershock is formidable and eerie, akin to the pause after a moment of startling violence.
There are stories that scream and stories that whimper. Rachel Seiffert's The Walk Home somehow does both and neither--a mostly quiet narrative punctuated by moments of unrest. Set in the years following the Irish Troubles, the novel moves among three generations: Brenda, a middle-aged grandmother, and her brother Eric, the family's black sheep; Brenda's son Graham, who married Lindsey in the wake of an unexpected pregnancy; and Stevie, Lindsey and Graham's only son, whose childhood plays out amidst family tensions rising toward the boiling point.
Though the events unfold in Scotland, the family's Irish heritage simmers beneath the surface. When Eric, Graham's long-ostracized uncle, begins to discuss his biblical artwork with Lindsey, her initial response is tight-lipped. Slowly, Seiffert reveals that there are certain topics that are as explosive as bombs in this fictional world: religion, the past, the brutality of previous generations. Even without a full knowledge of this period, a reader will find enough breadcrumbs to follow. Seiffert's contextual hints are subtle, best detected in her characters: Lindsey's depression belies her disgust at the way old patterns replay, generation after generation, leaving familial fissures in their wake; Stevie's wary interactions with neighborhood boys prove his canniness is evolutionary, protecting him against foes that might attack at the sight of a symbolic patch sewn on his jeans or the mention of a last name. In the low-income setting, allegiances are built on dead relatives and everlasting grudges. For a novel so quiet and spare, The Walk Home's aftershock is formidable and eerie, akin to the pause after a moment of startling violence.
July 12, 2016
Tribalism
I expect most other ratings of this novel to be three stars or less, not because Rachel Seiffert is bad—on the contrary, she is very very good—but because the combination of her delicate understatement and the unfamiliar social enclave within which she writes will mean that many readers will not get the point of her story at all. And the enclave is indeed a small one: the Ulster Protestant diaspora in working-class Glasgow. Even the dialogue takes a bit of getting used to:
Her novel plays out in two time-frames. In one, beginning in the early nineties, a young man named Graham travels with a Glasgow band to support an Orange march in a small town on the border between the two Irelands. He meets a girl there, Lindsey (the "braw lassie" of the above quotation), brings her back to Glasgow, and fathers her son. The other time frame is in the present, when the son, Stevie, now clearly estranged from his family, returns to Glasgow as a laborer on a construction project run by a group of Poles from Gdansk. Contrasting Stevie, who has made himself an internal exile in his own country, with this very different tribal group from Eastern Europe is one of Seiffert's more subtle strokes, though nothing is ever hammered hard on the head.
Sometimes, though, you wish that Seiffert would hit a little harder. The plot of the novel is the gradual discovery of what happened to tear apart the once happy family unit of Graham, Lindsey, Stevie, and the grandmother Brenda. The book jacket mentions that Graham is associating, through his band, with people who have paramilitary or terrorist connections. But really there is no more than a brief mention of "how guns and men and malice passed back and forth between Ulster and this side of Scotland"; it is neither the guns nor the men that Seiffert concentrates on, so much as the residue of malice. Lindsey, it turns out, has left Ireland partly to escape the venom of her bigoted father. Graham's family were forced out of Ireland two generations earlier, leaving them to be raised by a bitter bible-thumping old man. Graham's uncle Eric was disowned by his father years before; now made redundant from his job as a marine draftsman, he makes obsessive drawings working out his past in quasi-allegorical fashion. As each of the other characters in turn come to see more of Eric, we learn a little more of the back-story and just possibly glimpse some avenues that may lead to healing.
But don't expect big revelations, or even much action. Seiffert's writing is very low key, which is the secret of its truth, but this can also be frustrating. We never learn, for instance, much more about Lindsey than we knew at the middle of the book. And the walk home promised in the title is a long time in coming and far from complete. But at least we end with the characters pointing in the right direction.
I expect most other ratings of this novel to be three stars or less, not because Rachel Seiffert is bad—on the contrary, she is very very good—but because the combination of her delicate understatement and the unfamiliar social enclave within which she writes will mean that many readers will not get the point of her story at all. And the enclave is indeed a small one: the Ulster Protestant diaspora in working-class Glasgow. Even the dialogue takes a bit of getting used to:
A braw lassie wae red hair doon tae her bum, missus. Nothin tae dae wae us.But it so happens that this touches my own life in a couple of places. I grew up in Northern Ireland, and the Orange parades were a festive feature of the July scene, with their banners and sashes, fife bands and big painted Lambeg drums. I did not then see it as a dangerous manifestation of Protestant tribalism aimed to intimidate the Catholic minority; it was simply the mythology that the boys in my dormitory used to share in stories after lights out. Many years later, I moved to Glasgow for the first five years of my professional life, and was surprised to find the Ulster rivalries being played out in proxy by the supporters of the two football teams, Rangers and Celtic, with the same bands and symbols and almost equal aggression, though stopping short of bombs and kneecapping. I lived in a distinguished crescent in the University area, but it was impossible to ignore the hooliganism fomented by the misguided creation of huge housing projects on the fringes of the city. Drumchapel, where Seiffert's novel is largely set, was one of the worst.
(A pretty girl with red hair all the way down to her butt, nothing to do with us.)
Her novel plays out in two time-frames. In one, beginning in the early nineties, a young man named Graham travels with a Glasgow band to support an Orange march in a small town on the border between the two Irelands. He meets a girl there, Lindsey (the "braw lassie" of the above quotation), brings her back to Glasgow, and fathers her son. The other time frame is in the present, when the son, Stevie, now clearly estranged from his family, returns to Glasgow as a laborer on a construction project run by a group of Poles from Gdansk. Contrasting Stevie, who has made himself an internal exile in his own country, with this very different tribal group from Eastern Europe is one of Seiffert's more subtle strokes, though nothing is ever hammered hard on the head.
Sometimes, though, you wish that Seiffert would hit a little harder. The plot of the novel is the gradual discovery of what happened to tear apart the once happy family unit of Graham, Lindsey, Stevie, and the grandmother Brenda. The book jacket mentions that Graham is associating, through his band, with people who have paramilitary or terrorist connections. But really there is no more than a brief mention of "how guns and men and malice passed back and forth between Ulster and this side of Scotland"; it is neither the guns nor the men that Seiffert concentrates on, so much as the residue of malice. Lindsey, it turns out, has left Ireland partly to escape the venom of her bigoted father. Graham's family were forced out of Ireland two generations earlier, leaving them to be raised by a bitter bible-thumping old man. Graham's uncle Eric was disowned by his father years before; now made redundant from his job as a marine draftsman, he makes obsessive drawings working out his past in quasi-allegorical fashion. As each of the other characters in turn come to see more of Eric, we learn a little more of the back-story and just possibly glimpse some avenues that may lead to healing.
But don't expect big revelations, or even much action. Seiffert's writing is very low key, which is the secret of its truth, but this can also be frustrating. We never learn, for instance, much more about Lindsey than we knew at the middle of the book. And the walk home promised in the title is a long time in coming and far from complete. But at least we end with the characters pointing in the right direction.
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July 12, 2014One of the most interesting elements of The Walk Home is its depiction of the ongoing clashes between the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Actually, some readers may find this aspect of the story surprising for it garners little media attention these days. In fact, it is a safe bet to say that when discussing current religious conflicts, that part of the world never even crosses one’s mind. Yet, here is a modern-day story in which the animosity between the two religions continues to cause tension and provoke violence. This not only adds additional conflict to the story, it creates a timeless quality to it as well. Stevie’s story could really occur in any decade.
The rest of the story is equally fraught with tension but of the kind that occurs within families. There are strong themes of duty and love, as every character must reconcile that the two are not always related and/or compatible. Eric, Lindsey, and Stevie are each characters who are unable to do so, and so they run away. It is their lessons learned, the outcome of their flight from family conflict, which creates the heart of the story. As one might expect, it is an emotionally fragile story because family drama is always a highly sensitive area.
While The Walk Home ends on a hopeful note, the rest of the story is bleak and frustrating. Between the poverty of the scheme, the financial difficulties of his family, the financial difficulties of his boss, and the lasting regret displayed by the characters about fights gone wrong or decisions made, it is not the type of novel that allows one to escape one’s real-world problems. Rather, it is the type of novel to force readers to pause and reflect on one’s own choices and opinions, to recognize the truth behind the adage of blood being thicker than water. In this regard, The Walk Home is a quiet, reflective story, still enjoyable even though it was written not so much to entertain but rather to educate.
The rest of the story is equally fraught with tension but of the kind that occurs within families. There are strong themes of duty and love, as every character must reconcile that the two are not always related and/or compatible. Eric, Lindsey, and Stevie are each characters who are unable to do so, and so they run away. It is their lessons learned, the outcome of their flight from family conflict, which creates the heart of the story. As one might expect, it is an emotionally fragile story because family drama is always a highly sensitive area.
While The Walk Home ends on a hopeful note, the rest of the story is bleak and frustrating. Between the poverty of the scheme, the financial difficulties of his family, the financial difficulties of his boss, and the lasting regret displayed by the characters about fights gone wrong or decisions made, it is not the type of novel that allows one to escape one’s real-world problems. Rather, it is the type of novel to force readers to pause and reflect on one’s own choices and opinions, to recognize the truth behind the adage of blood being thicker than water. In this regard, The Walk Home is a quiet, reflective story, still enjoyable even though it was written not so much to entertain but rather to educate.
April 3, 2014
I received a ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review
The story starts with a boy arriving at the doorstep of a Polish man looking for work. Even though the man is doubtful he gives him a job. The next few chapters then tell the story of Graham and Lindsey who turn out to be the boy's parents. At first I thought there were two separate stories in this book. I also thought that the boy was forgotten about but his story came in later again.
It took me two days to read 10 chapters and I normally take an average of 3 days to finish book. For me the story was slow in developing and even though I read 10 chapters I still did not know where this story was going. The conversations in this book were written in the Irish dialect and I found myself reading them over again to understand what they were saying.
The story starts with a boy arriving at the doorstep of a Polish man looking for work. Even though the man is doubtful he gives him a job. The next few chapters then tell the story of Graham and Lindsey who turn out to be the boy's parents. At first I thought there were two separate stories in this book. I also thought that the boy was forgotten about but his story came in later again.
It took me two days to read 10 chapters and I normally take an average of 3 days to finish book. For me the story was slow in developing and even though I read 10 chapters I still did not know where this story was going. The conversations in this book were written in the Irish dialect and I found myself reading them over again to understand what they were saying.
October 12, 2014
This is the story of Stevie, told in two interleaved parts: how his parents met, married, and broke up; and how he gets on after he runs away. At the end of the story, he wants to go home, and his dad and grandparents really want him back, but it's left open whether he ever actually gets there. I'd say probably.
I read this, and I wanted the best for all the characters, but somehow it never really quite touched me very deeply. I liked the beginning part with the two young lovers, but after that, it was like living pages and pages of years of a bad marriage and life of drudgery. Well written--the author evoked that feeling and atmosphere quite well--but that's not what I want to experience for fun.
I read this, and I wanted the best for all the characters, but somehow it never really quite touched me very deeply. I liked the beginning part with the two young lovers, but after that, it was like living pages and pages of years of a bad marriage and life of drudgery. Well written--the author evoked that feeling and atmosphere quite well--but that's not what I want to experience for fun.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 11, 2016
She writes well about working class people. The problem with writing about working class people is that their lives are often grey - work, family... not much else to keep them interesting. Even the gifted uncle is torn down by mental illness. The point of difference in this story was the marching band. Although there was lots of ranting of the evils, drumming was what made Graham special - would have been more interested if this was explored more.. Was left wanting the story to be more.
June 7, 2014
Disappointed, to be honest. Beautifully written, evocative , visual but the story? Prosaic, inconsequential for a full novel. The stores of Jacob and Esau etc etc... went on too much... a character vanishing mid novel..... I admire the author's style and her confidence in using subject matter that is apparently so ordinary... but for me it was too ordinary.
December 13, 2016
Three and a half stars to four stars. In a word, gritty. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.
September 24, 2025
The main characters in this book were Lindsey and her husband Graham and their son, Stevie. They live in Drumchapel, a neighborhood in Glasgow. Graham's mother is a main character as she looks after Stevie often when he is young and later when Stevie and his mum move in with her. Lindsey's family came from county Tyrone in the north of Ireland (the UK), Graham's mum was also born in Ireland. I thought this book would be interesting read about Ireland, it turned out to be very biased toward the British, and against the Irish Republic. Graham is a drummer with the Orangemen- a horrible group that parade thru Irish areas every July 12, as a show of loyalty to the British govt. The few times Irish people are mentioned in the book it is usually very derogatory. Lindsey ends up leaving her son and husband when he starts back with the "band" with British loyalist hooligans. He has even taken their young son Stevie to a few of their meetings in the pub. Graham's mother is also against this and they have tried to talk him out hanging out with this group in the past. His Uncle Eric was banished from the family because he married a Catholic girl, their dad forbid anyone to go to their wedding , but his mum did and remained friendly and close with her brother, Eric and his wife, who sadly died of cancer after a short marriage. Eric spends all his waking hours drawing pictures of past times and people and constantly quoting the bible. Poor Stevie ends up running away from the family, going to London, where he thinks his mum went. Stevie got involved with a bad group of boys and stopped going to school once he was in secondary school and his mum had abandoned them without a word. I wish that I had not wasted time reading this entire book, it was clear from the start that I would not enjoy it.
August 9, 2025
Messy Families, Quiet Truths. This novel hit me hard
The Walk Home is a quiet, steady book that does not try to dress life up. It moves between the present, where Stevie has come back to Glasgow but keeps his distance from his family, and the past, where we see the tangled history that shaped him. There are no big twists. Instead, Rachel Seiffert shows us how families really are, messy, stubborn, sometimes loving, sometimes cruel.
The parts that stayed with me were the small moments. Eric at his desk, working on his drawings, keeping them to himself. Brenda, worn down from years of being the go-between in family disputes. Lindsey, realising the scale of the divides she has married into. These are people who do not have easy role models, who are trying to do better in their own ways, but often fall short. It is not for lack of love, it is that life and history get in the way.
Seiffert does not shy away from the hard stuff. She shows how sectarian grudges can split families for decades, how women often do the emotional work of holding people together, and how some rifts never heal. There is a street scene where Stevie is attacked for being on the wrong side that sums up the pointlessness of it all. It is raw and unvarnished, just like the rest of the book.
I can understand why some readers found the ending difficult. It does not tie things up neatly. But that is what I appreciated most. Families do not always fix themselves. Sometimes all you can do is wait and keep the door open. Reading this in my eighth decade, with plenty of life experience behind me, I felt the truth of it. When I was younger I might have looked for more resolution. Now I know this is how it often is.
The Walk Home is a quiet, steady book that does not try to dress life up. It moves between the present, where Stevie has come back to Glasgow but keeps his distance from his family, and the past, where we see the tangled history that shaped him. There are no big twists. Instead, Rachel Seiffert shows us how families really are, messy, stubborn, sometimes loving, sometimes cruel.
The parts that stayed with me were the small moments. Eric at his desk, working on his drawings, keeping them to himself. Brenda, worn down from years of being the go-between in family disputes. Lindsey, realising the scale of the divides she has married into. These are people who do not have easy role models, who are trying to do better in their own ways, but often fall short. It is not for lack of love, it is that life and history get in the way.
Seiffert does not shy away from the hard stuff. She shows how sectarian grudges can split families for decades, how women often do the emotional work of holding people together, and how some rifts never heal. There is a street scene where Stevie is attacked for being on the wrong side that sums up the pointlessness of it all. It is raw and unvarnished, just like the rest of the book.
I can understand why some readers found the ending difficult. It does not tie things up neatly. But that is what I appreciated most. Families do not always fix themselves. Sometimes all you can do is wait and keep the door open. Reading this in my eighth decade, with plenty of life experience behind me, I felt the truth of it. When I was younger I might have looked for more resolution. Now I know this is how it often is.
October 20, 2021
I picked up this book for my reading group along with Shuggie Bain and found myself immersed again in the troubled life of Glasgow. In this iteration the story is one I had not encountered before in a fictional form about the Protestant marching bands of that city divided on sectarian lines and I felt that the writer explored the impact of religion upon families with skill and sensitivity.
The book is about Stevie's family told from a present day view as Stevie having left home returns to Glasgow to work on a building redevelopment off books for a Polish family, and the other perspective is how his parents Lindsey and Graham met and how their marriage develops as well as the relationship with Graham's uncle Eric.
I enjoyed the respective stories and the narrative was such that I wanted to keep turning the pages and found the scenes of familial discord realistic and compelling. I know this was a view not shared by my friends in our group but this is definitely a book that I could not put down.
I recall reading The Dark Room years ago when it was nominated for prizes so was surprised having enjoyed that book that I have not come back to this author but I will be definitely be doing so soon.
The book is about Stevie's family told from a present day view as Stevie having left home returns to Glasgow to work on a building redevelopment off books for a Polish family, and the other perspective is how his parents Lindsey and Graham met and how their marriage develops as well as the relationship with Graham's uncle Eric.
I enjoyed the respective stories and the narrative was such that I wanted to keep turning the pages and found the scenes of familial discord realistic and compelling. I know this was a view not shared by my friends in our group but this is definitely a book that I could not put down.
I recall reading The Dark Room years ago when it was nominated for prizes so was surprised having enjoyed that book that I have not come back to this author but I will be definitely be doing so soon.
December 13, 2024
This quietly unsettling book is about tensions; tensions between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, between Irish and Scots in Glasgow (a city with a significant Irish diaspora), tensions between families, and tension within families. Yet Rachel Seiffert tells this story in a tone that allows us to continue reading because she cares about her characters, though flawed they may be, and she gently allows us to learn about and root for them. The story is often dark and in the end unresolved, yet it is beautiful and not without hope. One needs to be in the right mood to read The Walk Home, but if you are ready, you will be rewarded.
February 5, 2022
At the start a young waif appears at a construction site, eager for a job. In time the tale shifts to an earlier age of his family's exile from a once peaceful, agrarian life in Ireland to public housing in Glasgow. Though the story takes place in Scotland, "The Troubles" between Irish protestants and Catholics always lies beneath the family's own troubles, lurking, but never claiming a central emphasis. The boy's working class family struggles to maintain unity. Relationships slowly dissolve. The characters seem oddly opaque sparking little recognition or empathy.
October 23, 2020
This is a poignant story of family, faith and culture, and amazingly rendered. Not earth shattering, but it paints a small scale story with great detail, and explores the devastation of tribalism in both its native setting and transferred across the sea. It works its way out in family as well, in the inability of families to accommodate difference, to accept change through its generations. Insightful.
January 28, 2023
Maybe I should give it more stars. I’m not sure. It is well written and the characters are very believable and, for the most part, likable. Unfortunately, the story itself is just sad and frustrating; so much so that I don’t feel comfortable urging others to read it. That said, it does provide a lot of food-for-thought about forgiveness and acceptance within families as well as a bit of a cultural experience (albeit a tough one).
February 12, 2018
Despite the underdeveloped characters, distant protagonists, colloquial hard-to-follow dialogues, the story had enough for me to chew over. At a basic level, it got me to ponder on the influence of our immediate family on our psyche, but at a deeper level, it touched on how even localised social structural disturbances have a profound impact on the lives of more than one generation. An attempt to be subtle with the storyline has regrettably made the story lose its punch.
April 13, 2021
The blurb on the paperback edition I've just read doesn't mention the religious sectarianism which underpins this story. That seems a strange omission. I think Seiffert has been underserved by her publishers.
January 4, 2022
like Afterwards, it took a promising setup but never does much of interest with it. her characters remain flat and abstract to the very end, and her writing relies too heavily on exposition. it didn't help that it felt like it was trying a bit too hard to both-sides things.
June 1, 2017
Hormis la difficulté de lecture (l'accent écossais, même par écrit, est difficile à comprendre !), et le fait que ce ne soit vraiment pas gai, l'histoire est admirablement tricotée.
June 20, 2017
Well written but not an absorbing story.. The background involving the ongoing clashes between the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland and Scotland attracted me and the Glasgow setting.
April 12, 2018
Super book. Expertly intertwining two different time periods in a single, highly credible, Glaswegian story peopled by a range of highly credible characters
October 25, 2018
Did not finish
April 7, 2021
Beautiful writing. Heart wrenching. Heartwarming insights. The destructiveness of extreme religious beliefs and old stories. Hope.
June 5, 2021
I wanna stop reading halfway but I push myself until the end. I find it boring but some parts were interesting. The ending was quite disappointing
June 10, 2024
Seiffert Search #1
Average yarn which had some good moments but didn't do it for me - others may be more enamoured.
Average yarn which had some good moments but didn't do it for me - others may be more enamoured.
February 3, 2025
I found this book very dark and hard to understand, both because of the dialect but also because events were not explained at all. I would not recommend.
May 29, 2025
Makes family seem so large and small, loving and suffocating, members different but ultimately the same
November 25, 2025
DNF halfway through
April 26, 2015
follow me at krystalreviews.com
Rachel Seiffert's 3rd novel The Walk Home is a story of love and hope amidst the unreasonable religious and political conflict in one of the most deprived and roughest neighbourhoods in Scotland. The book centres around Stevie a young boy who left his family and their struggles behind like others in his family have done before. Stevie's present situation and his childhood are told parallel throughout the book. The religious strife of Ireland and the strong political views of the Scottish Masonic lodges bring conflict to Stevie's family. The frustration drive's Stevie and other's within the family to turn and run, leaving behind Drumchapel (the neighbourhood in Glasgow where Stevie grows up) and the emotional turmoil. Although the story is ripe with conflict and the pain of regret, Seiffert also spins a tale of love and hope.
The Walk Home was long listed for the 2015 Bailey's Women's Prize For Fiction. Rachel Seiffert's first novel, The Dark Room, was short listed for the booker prize, won the LA Times First Fiction prize, and was the basis for the movie Lore.
Seiffert expertly emerses us in the spirit of Scotland and Drumchapel through the use of Scottish slang throughout the novel. Although the Scottish dialect is pertinent to the story, an American/Canadian reader will need to overcome the hump of understanding the language, making for a slow start to the book. The author deftly transitions back and forth between Stevie's present life, told from the point of view of Jozef (Stevie's employer), and Stevie's childhood told from many character's points of view. So, the book flows well as you experience Drumchapel from the Stevie's eyes and each of his family members'.
Stevie's family are a complex group of people who have suffered their fair share of strife and conflict. Seiffert develops the characters layer upon layer as you read. Just when you think you understand Stevie, a new point of view comes into play changing everything. This makes for an interesting story, but also means that to enjoy the story a mother will need to give it all her attention. If the reader has children running amuck it will be difficult for her to connect with the story and characters.
Despite the language barriers and the need to give rapt attention to reading this book, I thoroughly enjoyed and connected with the story and characters. I even shed a few tears at the end as Seiffert was able to instil within me an incredible feeling of hope. Seiffert is an exceptional writer and The Walk Home will not disappoint.
Rachel Seiffert's 3rd novel The Walk Home is a story of love and hope amidst the unreasonable religious and political conflict in one of the most deprived and roughest neighbourhoods in Scotland. The book centres around Stevie a young boy who left his family and their struggles behind like others in his family have done before. Stevie's present situation and his childhood are told parallel throughout the book. The religious strife of Ireland and the strong political views of the Scottish Masonic lodges bring conflict to Stevie's family. The frustration drive's Stevie and other's within the family to turn and run, leaving behind Drumchapel (the neighbourhood in Glasgow where Stevie grows up) and the emotional turmoil. Although the story is ripe with conflict and the pain of regret, Seiffert also spins a tale of love and hope.
The Walk Home was long listed for the 2015 Bailey's Women's Prize For Fiction. Rachel Seiffert's first novel, The Dark Room, was short listed for the booker prize, won the LA Times First Fiction prize, and was the basis for the movie Lore.
Seiffert expertly emerses us in the spirit of Scotland and Drumchapel through the use of Scottish slang throughout the novel. Although the Scottish dialect is pertinent to the story, an American/Canadian reader will need to overcome the hump of understanding the language, making for a slow start to the book. The author deftly transitions back and forth between Stevie's present life, told from the point of view of Jozef (Stevie's employer), and Stevie's childhood told from many character's points of view. So, the book flows well as you experience Drumchapel from the Stevie's eyes and each of his family members'.
Stevie's family are a complex group of people who have suffered their fair share of strife and conflict. Seiffert develops the characters layer upon layer as you read. Just when you think you understand Stevie, a new point of view comes into play changing everything. This makes for an interesting story, but also means that to enjoy the story a mother will need to give it all her attention. If the reader has children running amuck it will be difficult for her to connect with the story and characters.
Despite the language barriers and the need to give rapt attention to reading this book, I thoroughly enjoyed and connected with the story and characters. I even shed a few tears at the end as Seiffert was able to instil within me an incredible feeling of hope. Seiffert is an exceptional writer and The Walk Home will not disappoint.
February 21, 2016
Graham and Lindsey meet in Northern Ireland. Lindsey lives there, sixteen and discontent with her life living with her father who ignores her. Graham is there with an Orange March band where he plays the drum. It is a Protestant custom meant to show the Protestant strength in Ireland to the Catholics, although Graham is not political, he just likes playing the drum and the uniforms.
Six weeks later, when Graham has returned to Glasgow, Lindsey shows up on his mom's doorstep, pregnant. The two get married and in due course, Stevie is born. Lindsey is fiercely independent and determined to get her little family ahead. This is the world of working poor, where everyone lives in government housing and the jobs are cleaning houses, driving taxis and construction. Lindsey wants her family to do better and for Stevie to have a better life.
But things go awry when Graham goes back to the life in the band. Lindsey's discontent with her father was rooted in his activities with the Catholic IRA and the constant tension and fighting that politics meant there. Although Graham doesn't see his actions as political, she can't stand to be reminded of that time. The constant fighting breaks up the family and sets Stevie astray. He runs away and is lost to the family.
The story is told in two parts. The first part is the story of Lindsey and Graham, starting when they meet and moving forward. The second part is Stevie's story when he returns to Glasgow after several years on his own. As the two stories move towards each other in time, the reader is drawn into contemplation about whether the family can also move back together and be reconciled.
Rachel Seiffer is considered one of the best current novelists. Her first novel, The Dark Room, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her second, Afterwards, was longlisted for the Orange Prize, and a collection of short stories, Field Study, received an award from PEN International. This novel, her third, was longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Literature, formerly the Orange Prize. This book is recommended for those interested in Irish history and those interested in how families can support each other and how easily they can be torn apart.
Six weeks later, when Graham has returned to Glasgow, Lindsey shows up on his mom's doorstep, pregnant. The two get married and in due course, Stevie is born. Lindsey is fiercely independent and determined to get her little family ahead. This is the world of working poor, where everyone lives in government housing and the jobs are cleaning houses, driving taxis and construction. Lindsey wants her family to do better and for Stevie to have a better life.
But things go awry when Graham goes back to the life in the band. Lindsey's discontent with her father was rooted in his activities with the Catholic IRA and the constant tension and fighting that politics meant there. Although Graham doesn't see his actions as political, she can't stand to be reminded of that time. The constant fighting breaks up the family and sets Stevie astray. He runs away and is lost to the family.
The story is told in two parts. The first part is the story of Lindsey and Graham, starting when they meet and moving forward. The second part is Stevie's story when he returns to Glasgow after several years on his own. As the two stories move towards each other in time, the reader is drawn into contemplation about whether the family can also move back together and be reconciled.
Rachel Seiffer is considered one of the best current novelists. Her first novel, The Dark Room, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her second, Afterwards, was longlisted for the Orange Prize, and a collection of short stories, Field Study, received an award from PEN International. This novel, her third, was longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Literature, formerly the Orange Prize. This book is recommended for those interested in Irish history and those interested in how families can support each other and how easily they can be torn apart.
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