Publishers Weekly
★ 12/20/2021
In this resplendent debut, Pushcart Prize winner Shattuck traipses from quiet elegy to compassionate celebration through a series of jaunts patterned after Henry David Thoreau’s rambles. Hoping to escape “a constellation of grief” over a breakup, Shattuck set out one May to walk the beaches of Cape Cod, retracing the footsteps of Thoreau. What started as a distraction turned into six separate treks, vividly brought to life here in Shattuck’s poetic retelling. On his first outing, a serendipitous meeting delivers him to the oysterman’s cottage where Thoreau slept 150 years earlier. When Shattuck’s later diagnosed with Lyme disease, he’s spurred to tackle two hikes: up Maine’s Katahdin and Massachusetts’s Wachusett mountains—where Thoreau walked after his brother’s death and, like Shattuck, found “consolation” in the stars, “displac bulging selfhood, under the shadow of such urgent beauty as the night sky.” After getting engaged, Shattuck returned to his roamings with a lighter heart, traveling to his family’s ancestral home in Sakonnet Harbor; the northernmost point of Thoreau’s Maine walk; and Cape Cod again, where he reconciled his grief as a necessary “period of fragility that brings your emotions closest to the surface.” Echoing Thoreau’s brilliant reflections with his own, Shattuck distills the healing power of nature into a narrative that’s a pure pleasure to wander through. Fans of Annie Dillard will find this mesmerizing. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME. (Apr.)
Literary North
"Meditative and centering."
The Arkansas International
"A love letter to New England’s natural world and the timeless revelations that walking in nature gives to us."
South Coast Today
"A must-read."
The Christian Science Monitor
"Resonant. . . . With its lovely illustrations and thoughtful insights about nature, love, and friendship, Six Walks celebrates taking time to see what really matters."
On the Seawall
"Moving. . . . For contemplative readers, this may be the perfect beach read."
Nathaniel Philbrick
"Inspired by Thoreau, but soon onto something that is very much his own, Ben Shattuck takes us on a journey that bores into the history of both himself and his native New England. A book of loss and redemption, fear and fragile hope, Six Walks is rich, evocative, and like the boat gunwale that cuts off the tip of his finger, unexpectedly dangerous—in that best of Thoreauvian ways."
Poets & Writers
"Humble and sincere. . . . he gleans new insight into masculinity, intimacy, climate change, and the politics of outdoor spaces. "
Karen Thompson Walker
"What a very beautiful book. Every page is a pleasure. Charming, insightful, and full of humanity, this gem reminded me how profound it can feel to simply walk the earth."
Nick Offerman
"A gorgeous reminder that walking is the most radical form of locomotion nowadays."
Starred Review Booklist
"Shattuck’s involving and poignant chronicle of immersions in nature, misadventures, family history, and a love story is shaped by his preternatural gift for discerning the essence of each moment and each place."
Bill McKibben
"I think Thoreau would have liked this book, and that’s a high recommendation."
The Boston Globe
"Part of the fun in Six Walks is how today’s reality—and Shattuck’s sense of humor—take over."
Provincetown Magazine
"A joy to read."
Nina MacLaughlin
"Walking as means of healing, walking as a way of seeing what’s there, walking as a method of pulling you out of yourself and rejoining the world—in this beautiful, smart, and moving book, Ben Shattuck shows us where putting one foot in front of the other can take us. Thoreau’s footsteps serve as map, but Shattuck has made a fresh journey right into the heart of things. In painterly prose, he brings us along on his walks and proves the best sort of guide: curious, open to the chance encounter, deeply attuned to rhythms natural and personal and to the strange joys to be found even in periods of pain. Most of all, he reminds us, every step of the way, of what’s on offer every time we walk out the door."
The Wall Street Journal
"Lyrical. . . . The author’s comedic talents are formidable and the characters he creates are hard to forget."
The Rumpus
"Brilliant. . . . A momentous landmark in time, reminding us of what might be lost in this world and what must be preserved."
Town & Country
"A poignant tribute to nature."
Hernan Diaz
"By walking in Thoreau’s footsteps, Ben Shattuck ends up following the long trail left by wandering thinkers and writers like Rousseau, Muir, Walser, Benjamin, and Solnit. Along the way, Six Walks offers a moving meditation on nature and history—and what our precarious place between these two realms may be."
The New York Times
"Comforting. . . . it’s the sweetness in the sorrow that is captured in this writing, along with the natural world’s endless invitation to solace."
Eric Jay Dolin
"A beautiful and thought-provoking journey of discovery, which will leave you very glad that you walked a while with Ben Shattuck."
The New Yorker
"Shattuck’s main message is the primacy of love, for both the people around us and the world we inhabit."
Spirituality & Practice
"This is a book for learning the spiritual practices of attention and wonder from a master teacher—both Thoreau, and his student, Shattuck."
Chicago Review of Books
"Moving. . . . Six Walks witnesses how, in every season, choosing to step into the natural world can lead to healing and peace."
The Provincetown Independent
"Shattuck’s descriptions match Thoreau in their beauty and sincerity."
Casey Walker
"Ben Shattuck asks of Thoreau ‘Why was it so comforting to read this antique account of winter and loss?’—and I felt the same about Shattuck’s book. A beautiful account of wandering through a season of illness and loss, and walking with Thoreau into the light."
Harvard Review
"Relatable and compelling. . . . with exquisite black-and-white drawings."
Town & Country
"A poignant tribute to nature."
Pinestraw Magazine
"Intimate, entertaining and beautifully crafted, Six Walks is a tribute to the ways nature can inspire us all."
Mind Picker
"Very satisfying as a work of naturalism, literary criticism, and self-discovery memoir."
Kirkus Reviews
2021-12-21
A memoir about walking in Thoreau’s path.
Shattuck, artist and director of Maine’s Cuttyhunk Island Writers’ Residency program, channels the writings of Thoreau in this reflective foray into the oft-traveled world of walking. After reading Thoreau’s Cape Cod and in a fit of anguished nightmares and restlessness, Shattuck decided that now was the time to set off. Beginning at Massachusetts’ Nauset dunes, he searched for the small shack in Wellfeet where the iconic writer stayed. “Walking through the pines around Wellfleet’s seven outer ponds,” he writes, “my footfalls silenced by carpets of ochre and shed needles, I quickly got lost.” Two days later, he reached Provincetown, where he experienced “exactly what I wanted—to be obliterated by the insistent presence of the sea, as the sea had done to Cape Cod.” Dealing with medications for Lyme disease, Shattuck hiked other Thoreau destinations, including Mount Katahdin, Wachusett Mountain, and Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond, where he took a dip. Throughout, Shattuck interweaves Thoreau’s writings with his own observations, reflecting on the geographical changes caused by climate change and urban sprawl as well as the stars that Thoreau described as “our fellow-travelers still, as high and out of our reach as our own destiny.” The narrative sputters when it shifts to Shattuck’s time in Rhode Island, where family had lived, his relationship with his wife, Jenny, and an unfortunate accident years ago with a boat’s gunwale that resulted in the loss of the top part of his middle finger. Reliving Thoreau’s hiking and canoeing adventures in northern Maine’s Allagash Wilderness Waterway gets Shattuck back into his enthusiastic, poetic stride, describing the same black flies that had also accosted Thoreau, listening to bird song, and observing a double rainbow. Accompanied by Jenny, he concludes with a return visit to Provincetown, wanting the “revelation that came at the end of my first Cape walk: that following Henry led to hidden, unexpected goodness.” The author’s black-and-white illustrations dot the narrative.
Wistful and meditative, sparked by lovely prose.
