The Wire-Walker
In James Janko’s searing novel The Wire-Walker, a talented Palestinian girl defies the limitations of her home to declare “watch for me in the sky.”
Amal, raised in a West Bank refugee camp, grows up with few joys: a peek of sky, love from her grandfather and mother, a purring cat, and her aspirations toward the circus. She practices wire-walking for six hours a day, posting her feats on the internet.
When Tali, a Tel Aviv juggler, comes upon Amal’s blog, the girls start a friendship pocked by generational pains. Still, Tali helps Amal come to Israel to perform with the Israeli and Palestinian children of the Flying Kids circus. There Amal learns that the stories she made up about the world beyond the camp were partial truths: In Israel and Palestine, everyone has lost someone, and there is no such thing as a safe city.
Though raised to regard Israelis as uniform enemies, Amal comes to love those she meets through the circus, including Tali’s mournful mother; Jonathan, a former soldier and performance artist; and her fellow circus performers. But the violence brewing in Nablus narrows her world once more when Amal spots a foreboding package beneath her twin Issam’s bed.
Amal is a defiant heroine who declares “I will walk till I die and love who I can”—positioning her against Issam, whom she worries has never loved anyone. Driven by compassion but resentful of the privations forced on the camp, she yearns to “walk among ghosts on a thread … and weave things together.” And though saving her family lands her in detention and shuts her off from her Israeli friends forever, she determines never to stop walking on the barrels of tanks.
The Wire-Walker is an aching, heartbreaking novel about a girl whose sky-high dreams cannot be contained.
Reviewed by
Michelle Anne Schingler
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
