The Long Hot Walk

The Long Hot Walk beautifully illuminates the unshakable mother and daughter bond through mental illness, poverty, and loss with sweetness and wit. An off-kilter memoir with a tender heart.

Eight-year-old Debbie McCarroll is walking an empty stretch of New Mexico desert with her mother Mary and the turbulent ocean of people raging through Mary’s head. The odyssey will lead to an eclectic cast of saints and sinners tucked into a boarding house for Navaho women. The journey will encompass a parade of institutions, estranged siblings and a murdered rooster, all under the looming shadow of Mary’s escalating illness.

DEBORAH McCARROLL is the author of two novels, Necessary Evil and Murder in the Market as well as the memoir The Long Hot Walk. She’s been published in the literary magazines SN Review and Foliate Oak. McCarroll is also an award-winning painter and singer-songwriter. She makes her home in Seattle, Washington.