The Walking Boy

Lisa Arsenault is a high-school English teacher who is involved in
several ministry campaigns to increase literacy.

A hermit monk living in seclusion with his young protege, the walking
boy of the title, sends him to the city to locate his former lover, an
Indian sculptor. An alternating storyline features the female Emperor of
China, who is writing her private palace diaries. They are to be a
statement in support of the empowerment of women and a protest against
future male revisionist commentary on her reign. The two plots are
loosely linked by the figure of the Empress, who had some interaction
with the monk many years previously.

The story is set during the reign of the Empress Nu Huang (AD
690–705), whose gender was an anomaly in patriarchal Chinese history.
The author is obviously steeped in scholarship pertaining to this period
and the reader learns a great deal about customs, social mores, and
politics. However, the characters, with the possible exception of the
Empress, are not compelling. Their personality traits are inconsistent
and they seem to vacillate in their actions. This may be the result of
the awkward wording that prevails throughout the novel, for example,
“Now is the moment to memorialize to her Majesty for the reinstatement
of our ally at court.”

The book purports to address the individual’s search for meaning, but
I found its philosophical aspects rather trite, with a rather prurient
emphasis on “alternative” sexual practices. The Walking Boy is the
second of a trilogy; it’s hard to believe that the material can be
stretched across three novels.