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Film This Book
Joe Walker, by Martha Ture. (Lulu Press 2007); paperback; 370 pages; $23.95 on Amazon.com.
Author’s Note: This note comes to you from the author of the review rather than the author of the book. It’s only fair to admit that I have run this suggestion by the author of the book, Martha Ture. She captured my love of a common sight here in the Texas Hill Country — a hawk riding the thermals, something that in our time can be presented from the hawk’s point of view — on the first pages.
The hawk “veered aslant the wind to scout a new position, her tail glowed orange in the sun.” Joe Walker would have made eye contact with the proud bird had she not been showing him her tail feathers.
“I count eleven tail feathers,” thought Walker, “I can see each one…” The old mountain man was in a doctor’s office viewing the real world through a window.
The doctor expressed amazement at the 65-year-old Walker’s general physical condition before he dropped the hammer: two or three years of eyesight remained by relying on the spectacles just fitted.
Martha Ture was as tired of living and breathing Joe Walker as she had Walker instantly tired of watching his vision deteriorate. The hawk was just looking for rodents, doing what hawks do, but the narrative those human eyeglasses set…
