Walks Away Woman

by Ki Longfellow

Ki Longfellow, acclaimed author of Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria,The Secret Magdalene, and Houdini Heart has penned Walks Away Woman, a remarkable story of an ordinary woman driven to an extraordinary decision.

Overwhelmed, overwrought, and overweight, an everyday housewife walks into the Sonoran Desert to die. But there is more to a desert than sand: thorns, venom, heat, man, beast—and adventure.

Genres: Survival, Adventure, Fiction, Book Club, Novels, Thriller, Literature

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 29, 2013

About the author

Ki Longfellow, born on Staten Island, New York, to a French-Irish mother and an Iroquois father, grew up in Hawaii and Marin County, California, but ended up living in France and England for many years. She is the widow of a British national treasure, the complete artist Vivian Stanshall.

In England, she created and sailed the Thekla, a 180 foot Baltic Trader, to the port of Bristol where it became the Old Profanity Showboat. It remains there today as a Bristol landmark. On it, she and Vivian wrote and staged a unique musical for the sheer joy of it. "Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera," garnered a host of delighted, if slightly puzzled, national reviews.

Her first book, "China Blues," was the subject of a bidding war. "China Blues," and her second novel, "Chasing Women," introduced Longfellow to Hollywood... a long hard but ultimately fascinating trip. ("China Blues" was reissued by Eio Books in 2012.)

When Vivian died in 1995, Ki stopped writing, living on Standing Room Only Farm in Vermont. Time may not heal, but it tempers. Eventually Ki began writing again, but her subject became the moment at age 19 that informed her life... a direct experience with the Divine. She chose the figure of Mary Magdalene to tell that tale in her novel "The Secret Magdalene." Nancy Savoca, a brilliant independent film maker (winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize with her first film, "True Love") traveled all the way to Vermont to option the book as her next film.

Ki's second book on the Divine Feminine is "Flow Down Like Silver," a novel about the numinous and gifted Hypatia of Alexandria, a tragically ignored historical figure of towering intellect who searched through intellect for what the Magdalene knew in her heart.

In a huge departure from her all she'd written before, Longfellow found herself weaving a tale of supernatural horror called "Houdini Heart." This book was selected by the Horror Writers of America as one of a handful of books to be considered for their 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel.

In the Spring of 2013 the first three titles of her Sam Russo noir murder mystery series was published by Eio Books: "Shadow Roll," "Good Dog, Bad Dog," and "The Girl in the Next Room." There is a fourth title "Dead on the Rocks" available and there may be more. Or maybe not.

In December, 2013, she released a tale of one woman's attempt to survive lost in the Sonoran Desert: "Walks Away Woman."

She’s at work on the third and last book in her Divine Feminine series. Meant to be one thing, it's become quite another thing. Writers may think they know what they're going to write, but they can be very wrong. This book is "The White Bee".

In late January of 2018 she published the art book, biography, and memoir she'd promised Vivian Stanshall she would one day write for him: "The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, a Fairytale of Grimm Art".

in the early months of 2018 three more of her books were optioned for Hollywood, one as a high end television mini-series and two as films.

She lives wherever she finds herself. Currently that’s between Somerset, England and Olympia, Washington.

Reviews

[Justonemorebook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like reading a book's bad reviews much more than its good reviews. The bad ones, the one and two stars reviews, are usually written by a.) illiterates and often hilarious, or by b.) highly educated well-read smarties and almost always hilarious. (I search goodreads for these and I've found enough to make, if gathered up and organized, a great book of their own.) This book has no bad reviews since it's brand new - and I ain't about to be the first person to write one. I loved the damn thing. Wandering around in the desert with a clueless helpless hapless housewife, facing down bobcats and gila monsters and tarantulas and New York City cowboys and rude old bald women and drunken bone snatchers and thorns and kissing bugs and heat, what could be better than that? She makes best friends with an ass. I came to love that ass as much as I came to love Molly Brock (Mrs. Peter Warner as was) growing up at a late age in a world of certain pain and potential death. Longfellow keeps writing completely different books in perfectly suited prose and this one is no exception. She doesn't repeat herself. Some people want to read the same book over and over and make some writer rich. Some people, like me, love to read really good books, period. In its own way Walks Away Woman is as meaningful as The Secret Magdalene or Flow Down Like Silver.

[Helloyoureaderyou · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can find any number of books about men matching their wits against nature. Sailing, climbing, hiking, running, whatever. I can't think of any book where a woman matches her wits against nature. And certainly not a normal American soap opera watching, pill popping, aging housewife kind of woman. It's a simple tale and it isn't. To outline it is to spoil the absolute delight in following this woman out beyond the "trash line" (her great description of approaching human settlements) as she tries to die, and then, of course tries not to die. Along the way, she does not do as most men trying to survive do which is discover or rediscover what we've lost - our connection to nature. And in a man's case, our attempt to dominate it. This woman discovers nature, true, but she really discovers herself. Or perhaps she reinvents herself. This is a total page turner. I went to bed reading it. And then I kept reading it straight through the night. Big Thumbs Up.

[Brian Hetherington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucky me. I got this as a proof because of my blog. I can't believe this writer. She can handle any genre. This one is right up to date and covers one of my favorite things... a person against the elements. And this person is a wimp (you'd think, and so does she), a bullied wife, an unappreciated mother, a Valium addict, a telly watcher, nobody really. So she decides, what the hell, why keep on living? What for? So she walks out of one of those mega grocery stores and into the desert around Tucson, Arizona, to end it all. How could she miss? Illegal aliens die there all the time. But not Mrs Warner. Mrs. Warner discovers (once she stops whining) that she's more than equal to a desert. She becomes Molly Brock again, the girl she would have been if she hadn't made chickenshit choices. Now, this would make some terrific movie for an aging Hollywood leading lady. Susan Sarandon, you listening?

[Booktrek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because it was a new one by Longfellow, I had to get it right away. You never know what you're getting with this writer, but I always wind up with something I savor to the last page. This time it's about a lonely housewife (not my thing) at the end of her rope (not my thing) who just gives up (not my thing) so does as the title says, walks away to die (not my thing). Since she lives in some 'burb in Tucson, Arizona, what she walks into is the Sonoran desert, the one with the really tall armed cactus plants. And the spiders and snakes and gila monsters and hot hot hot. The desert is my thing so I walked with her. I am so glad I did. As I already said, I savored it to the last page. A great last page, by the way. Great.

[Devlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm crazy for books about people surviving against the odds. (Just saw Redford's new movie. Great.) So of course, I had to read this one. Plus it's by one of my favorite writers. This one was especially fun because the woman could barely make it in suburbia, what was she going to do in a desert full of creepy crawly things? Molly Brock is now my hero.

[Devin Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd walk through thorns and around rattlers for another 300 pages. LOVE THIS.

[Ohmeohmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Stephen King's "Joyland" at the same time. Being a fan, I was eager to live in his head for awhile. But as I just wrote on "Joyland"'s page, it was oddly flat ride, dull really. And then I read "Walks Away Woman" and everything amped up about 200%. The energy, the feel of the desert, the voice of the woman tramping about with her purse and then her donkey, was alive and witty. I couldn't wait to be done with "Joyland." I set "Walks Away Woman" aside with a sigh. Maybe in a few months or so, I can read it again. I sure want to.

[Lawrence Sclink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it twice. Gave it a week after finishing the first time and then read it again. Did not want to stop being in the world of the book. I'm having trouble adjusting. Will there be a sequel? If so, I'm there.

[Mauditia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longfellow writes books that are not only great books, they'd make terrific movies.

[Zachary Noble · Rating 5 out of 5]

It will make you smile, laugh, gasp, worry, and wish you could do as she did. It might even make you want to walk away. Not into a desert maybe, but away from the life you're living into the life you'd like to live. I admit that's how it's made me feel. So much so that I bought a plane ticket. Now I just have to get on the plane (which I hate, by the way) but after reading this wonderful tale, I realized I too want to walk away. Read this book. See if you want to walk away. You could be surprised.

[Paul Gefflinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A zinger. Loved this book.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, what did I think? I've taken to reading best sellers lately. I want to know why they sell. So far, I haven't a clue. Maybe it's nothing more than genre. We went through our vampire years. And then came that wizard kid. (Or the other way round, I forget.) These were followed by zombies. But as I already know what to expect from Longfellow, I thought I'd try her latest. Well, blow me down with a bellows, it wasn't what I expected at all. This one was set in the present, it was about a "normal" American woman living a normal American life who does what so many wind up thinking they'll have to do. They'll end it all. A nice house, a nice car, an easy life, the kids grown and gone. You'd think it would be time to, I don't know... what do normal people do at this stage of their life? Buy a boat? Sail the Caribbean? But Mrs. Warner's husband is having an affair. Mrs. Warner is watching TV and taking a lot of Valium. Mrs. Warner's husband and his father are planning to have Mrs. Warner sent away to a nice "rest home" somewhere. When Mrs. Warner walks away before they can net her, she doesn't buy a plane ticket to Greece where she meets a good looking fisherman. Mrs. Warner walks out into the desert to die. And there begins a tale I spent the night reading non-stop. It was simple, it was fast, it was honest, it was funny, it was wonderful. God Bless Molly Brock (Mrs. Warner as was).

[Nils9 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every page of this book I saw as a movie. Every scene is so visual I saw it as if it were on a huge screen. I was IN it. I could taste it, smell it, feel it. Great tale of survival. Not by some sportsman or adventurer. By some average housewife lost in the desert. Turns out she's not so average. Maybe none of us are. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

[Mort Gomez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Want to follow Molly Brock and her ass wherever she goes. Will there be a sequel? A movie? Great writing, compelling story, colorful world, fascinating characters - and what a character arc!

[Samanthag · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of survival books. This one exceeded my hopes. It wasn't just a matter of facing danger or beating the odds, it was a woman freeing herself from what our society expects of a female. She began as Mrs. Warner and she became Molly Brock. It was better than climbing a mountain or sailing solo around the world. It was the survival of not just the body, but the spirit. It's made me think of walking away.

[Bookheavy · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, this was a mystical quest hiding in a deliciously simple tale of what everyone secretly wants to, not just women. We all want to walk away from the mess we've made of our lives, from the commitments, the hardships of owning things, of striving for things, even from the burden of those we love. We want to set those burdens down and be free. Go Molly!

[Nevermore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Molly Brock Warner. I go to see this as a movie immediately. But as a book, it's so vivid and so real and so charismatic, it might as well be a movie. As they say, this is one of those books once you start, you're there and you don't want to leave.

[Vivienne Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can totally relate to Mrs. Warner's need to just walk away. I often wish I could it. But it takes bravery. I'm stuck in a world of fear, and I love my kids and my husband, but if I'm honest, I think I'd love to walk away like Molly Brock Warner does.

[Adriana Vasquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the spiritual profundity of The Secret Magdalene and Flow Down Like Silver to the fantastical horror of a thriller like Houdini Heart - and now this? A compelling tale of a woman who finds herself as she sets out to die? This writer is doing things to my head.

[Bookbrigade · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book this year. Everyone wants to walk away at some point in their life. I want all my friends to read it, so it's my birthday present now. To all of them.

[Messedup · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not to give anything away, but there is a donkey is this tale I'd take home in a second. Always loved donkeys and this one is a gem.

[Noomi Morisse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of story I live for. When I run across one, I read it slowly, savor every moment, dreading the thought if it coming to an end. It's a quest, it's a survival against great odds, it's a woman growing up long past the time she became an adult. It's about someone coming to their senses and finding out who they are and what they want. As others have said, what a movie. But a movie would have to get inside the head of Mrs. Warner, hear her talk to herself as she faces each brink of a moment. I think of myself as Mrs. Warner now. I say: what would Mrs. Warner who slowly grows younger and fitter and wiser and kinder and less needy and more self-reliant until she becomes the girl she was, Molly Brock. I like to think I too have become my Molly Brock. Great book!

[Megan Moorhouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I began Ki Longfellow with a book called Houdini Heart which staggered me with its language, ideas, use of superb metafiction, and storytelling. So, of course, I wanted more of the same. I read another of her titles, this one - Walks Away Woman. It wasn't anything like Houdini Heart. And yet I loved it. Wandering about in the Sonoran Desert with a broken down housewife who comes to life in a most wonderful way. So I went off to find another Walks Away Woman and discovered Longfellow doesn't repeat herself unless you count her charming, funny, and mysterious Sam Russo noir murder mysteries. I can't really think of another writer who reinvents her work with every book. Or one who can write so well in so many styles and genres. I honestly believe if she'd stuck with one genre (like writing something like her The Secret Magdalene over and over) as most writers do, she'd be a household name by now. But she hasn't. So someone like me didn't find her until I stumbled over her. I am thrilled I did. BIG HANDS UP.

[Lakelover · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simple clean beautiful tale of a woman who has given up. The life we life, men and women, in the so-called First World - a life of specious achievement, the acquiring of stuff, the right marriage, the right job, the right neighborhood - is killing us all. Forget the corporations speeding up the process by killing the actual planet. No wonder Mrs. Warner wants out, permanently. I do too, more than I ever admit, even to myself. But she does it, she walks away. And into a new world the old Mrs. Warner couldn't even imagine. I LOVED this book.

[Storytellersam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just couldn't stop reading this book. Something different is happening on every page, I was turning them like crazy. When I was young, before the wife and the kids, I wanted to do this. I wanted to walk away from the street I lived on, I wanted to make a life just like I imagined it could be. But I didn't have the guts. Instead I got the wife and the kids and the house and the job. Don't get me wrong. I love my family. But what would have happened if I just walked away? Wish I knew. Now I'm too damned old to find out.

[Anastasta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hellofava story. What a movie it would make.

[Mr. Magneto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw a movie once I thought was going to be like this book. I was excited and settled in for one of my favorites themes: a fight for physical survival alone and against all the odds, and the growth of the hero (in this case, heroine) into someone admirable. Five minutes into the movie and I realized it wasn't going to be what I hoped. One page into this book and it was all I hoped it would be. A great adventure, a great survivor, and a world of pain that turns into a world of wonder. It's all in how you look at it and it's all in who you are - or who you become. Big kudos. Goes on the Always Keep shelf.

[Tasmin Bishee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A splendid story of what everyone wants. A new life, a new "me", a new purpose or "any" purpose. A life that means something. The shedding of old skin for glowing new skin. A rejection of all that makes us small, that boxes us in, that is expected. A punch in the face to a civilization that demands we conform. Oh, how I loved this book. It goes in my FOREVER LIBRARY.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I thought this was a "light read" from Longfellow after her amazing research, gorgeous writing and profound meaning in THE SECRET MAGDALENE and FLOW DOWN LIKE SILVER. Or from HOUDINI HEART, a study in the psychology of the creative mind. But as I read along, delighting in the adventures of Mrs. Warren, I realized it was much more than a light read. It expresses a universal theme, one shared not only by women but by men. The goals and rewards we've accepted in the Western world (and increasingly in parts of the world who look to the west for inspiration) are hollow and unsatisfying. We think money will make us happy. We dream of owning things. We long for status. We look around and see people not in our group as the "other" and are afraid of them so we react with hostility. We pollute our amazing brains with religion (I don't mean the spiritual, I mean codified beliefs about reality that serve the masters of our precious minds: priests, ayatollahs, rabbis, gurus, whatever). But we aren't happy. The more money we have, the more we want. The more status we have, the more we worry others are more powerful or important. The more stuff we acquire, the more it burdens us to carry it. And secretly or not so secretly we want to run away from it all. We want true freedom from what our world sells us as worthy. It's not much of a secret that so many of us would walk away if we could. But we are buried under beliefs and possessions and obligations. As I read this book I realized I was reading the dream. To throw it all away, to be afraid and yet to walk into a wilderness of the soul. Mrs. Warren shed her tattered shabby skin and became Molly Brock. From a weak mess of a valium addicted, unloved and abandoned housewife, she became a master of her soul. This is a light read in one away (so smooth, so easy, such subtle touches) but in another it's as profoundly important as anything Longfellow has written. As a fan, this is saying a lot.

[Penny Hopper · Rating 5 out of 5]

On a blistering summer's day in the suburbs of Tucson, Arizona, a normal aging housewife walks away from her empty nest, glances up at the house where she knows her husband is having an affair with some other housewife, and steps into the Sonoran Desert to die. She figures it ought to be easy. "Primitive" people do it. It's hot. Find a nice rock and drift away. Things don't go as Mrs. Warren thinks they should. It's not easy to die. It's scary. It's uncomfortable. Lying around on a rock, some bug could bite you. It doesn't take long to figure this isn't a good idea. So back to her daytime soaps, one kid in college "majoring in greed", the other risking her life on the mean streets of LA, her Valium and her loneliness. But where is "back"? Mrs. Warren wasn't paying attention when she walked straight into the hot hot hot dry thorny desert. She's lost. She can't just walk back. Her cell needs charging. She's in real trouble here. And therein begins a wonderful crispy written (not a word our of place) novel of survival. Not the survival of a adventurer or a man who knows how to handle the wild but crashed his airplane or got his arm stuck between rocks. The survival of a woman who's just had her hair done, who doesn't know anything about feeding herself outside her supermarket or a good restaurant. It's a unexpected story, a touching story, a freeing story. It's a story I will read again. And again.