Walking Distance - Pilgrimage, Parenthood, Grief, and Home Repairs

Walking Distance is a profoundly unique memoir. David Hlavsa invites the reader into a sacred place where the numinous meets the secular, where humor and suffering intersect, and where life and death coalesce. Few literary pieces allow such an authentic glimpse into the world of profound love and loss.
--Joanne Cacciatore, Founder, MISS Foundation, and Director, Center for Loss and Trauma
Walking Distance is funny, compelling, and familiar. You care about the characters (adorably flawed, both of them), and you want to know what is going to happen to them. And what does happen to them is life--not an easy life, but real life. The story has all the elements of a good film: comedy, tragedy, and redemption, with lovely arcs for each of the characters as well as for their relationship, which really is a character in and of itself.
--Lynn Shelton, director of Your Sister's Sister, Laggies, and Humpday (Sundance Special Jury Prize, 2009)
Beautifully written. Moving, elegant, funny, and deeply human.
--Dani Shapiro, author of Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion
David Hlavsa shares a most intimate and personal story of love and life, mirroring something we all face. Grief comes and everything becomes foreign. We don't know the language. The map we used before makes no sense now. We all love our children, living and dead. The love continues. The path continues.
--Kara L. C. Jones, author of Flash of Life, cofounder Kota Press
Deeply inspiring. For some couples wanting a baby and having one is like a walk across a backyard garden--sweet and swift. For others, it's a pilgrimage of passionate endurance. Walking Distance is a poignant and captivating account of a hard journey--written with humor and humility by a loving husband and father.
--Sherokee Ilse, author of Empty Arms