Etta and Otto and Russell and James

by Emma Hooper

'Writing that easily equals that of the Booker-winning Richard Flanagan...[and] as readable and gripping as any thriller.' - The Times

I've gone. I've never seen the water, so I've gone there. I will try to remember to come back.

Etta's greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two she gets up very early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots, and begins walking the 2, 000 miles to water.

Meanwhile her husband Otto waits patiently at home, left only with his memories. Their neighbour Russell remembers too, but differently - and he still loves Etta as much as he did more than fifty years ago, before she married Otto.

• ISBN10: 0241003326
• ISBN13: 9780241003329
• Publish Date: 29 January 2015 (first published 20 January 2015)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 2 November 2015
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Fig Tree
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Beth C.]

What do you do when you're losing your way? When the "you" that you've always known starts becoming fainter and fainter, and eventually will disappear altogether? Well, if you're Etta, you go walkabout. You head out, on your own, determined to walk to see the ocean. No matter that this journey is hundreds of miles, or that you could forget yourself along the way. You just put a piece of paper with your name and relatives in your pocket, pack up some food, lace up your boots, and start walking. And if, along the way, you meet a coyote you call James who keeps you company? So much the better.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James is such a lovely book. The back and forth between Etta's journey (and Otto's, and Russell's) and the past as they were growing up and enduring the war was so well done. All three of these characters share the story, as they have shared *their* stories since they were much younger. Because, as Etta says, everyone has a story. But sometimes, it just gets too buried to be easily found. But these three, they have their stories and they live them and grow in them with such grace and such heart. As a reader, it's nice to come across a book that is so endearing that you just want it to keep going, to continue to run into the characters as you would a friendly neighbor across the street. This is just such a book.

Emma Hooper has done quite well in her debut, and I wish her the best with the rest of her writing. I can only hope that they are just as lovely as this one.

[meowstina]

I received an advanced reader’s copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

If this book sounds very similar to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, that’s because it is very similar. Etta leaves home with a purpose, to walk a far journey to see the ocean. She meets up with animals and reporters, almost doesn’t make it, and all the while her husband waits for her at home, writing letters to her. Of course, there are differences. The format for each chapter is as follows: current perspective of Etta, or Otto, and then directly after is a past event. Both the past and present sections are in chronological order, so as Etta is travelling and Otto is dealing with it, readers get to see how they grew up, how they met, and how they got together.

I enjoyed reading Etta’s past bits and Otto’s present bits the most. Their story is unusual amid Etta’s not so unusual (outside of the book, anyway) journey. Even though there is dialogue in the book, there are no quotation marks used, which makes the it feel like more of a story being narrated than the characters recalling their pasts. The storytelling vibe is nice, but it can make reading the lines of dialogue somewhat confusing. The end of the book makes me question what the point of the book was, which is discouraging. I was left feeling confused and questioning the reason for Etta’s journey and the novel, really. As a whole, though, I found the book okay.