A review by jonfaith
The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am by Kjersti A. Skomsvold

4.0

During the early 1990s I looked forward to Saturday nights. I worked two full time jobs to pay off debts and found myself working six days a week. At my local pub, I assembled a writing group and for several months, it was the focal point of my week, hell, my existence. Blame it on youth but I would alternate between Guinness and espresso throughout the night, argue until I was hoarse and then go home in the wicked light of morning, clothes reeking of smoke. Most of the group's efforts I have chosen to forget. One of my own lingers. It was an attempted insight into my grandmother, who then lived in a retirement community. My grandmother Stella has been the only bookish person in my family aside from myself. I was curious what she thought of life, her husband had died a few years before and there she was. She couldn't drive and was a terrible cook: in fact, we adjusted Thanksgiving to pizza from papa Johns for a number of years before she died. We never spoke of her ambitions and what she felt at the twilight of her life.

I really tried with that one piece I wrote for the group. It mimicked the closing monologue from Ulysses which I browsed in Ellmann's biography.

My attempt was brought to bear yesterday when I bought Skomsvold's novel yesterday. It is a fairly easy novel to climb into and the truth revealed isn't pretty but it is quite real. It also might be a likely outcome for my own life. I bought myself a collection of Deanna Durbin films as my grandmother had always lauded her. I have been deliberate in my approach. I want each of them a framing distance. I think this novel will fill in some of those blank margins.

If forced, I'd give it 3.5 stars; it did bruise despite its sleight approach.