In addition, the majority of people that populate the novel are often purely stock. She was the best thing in his life.” More troubling is the way in which this linguistic simplicity impinges upon the characters’ psychological depth: harnessed to such conventional language, the characters are denied the complexities of full consciousness. Even when her eyes had become cruel and her tongue had cut him. He was still in love with her, he realized. As he tries to resurrect his marriage, Thomas’s moment of epiphany emerges in rather trite prose: “Thomas felt as if he had been cleaved in two. His writing tends to be clichéd, like his depictions of the emotional trauma of a failing marriage, the death of loved ones, rape, and enslavement. The novel alternates between this narrative and that of Thomas Clarke, a Washington, D.C.-based corporate attorney who is struggling to come to terms with his failing marriage and professional dissatisfaction.Īddison’s prose style often leaves much to be desired. Across her harrowing journey, she witnesses various incarnations of human slavery, like the prostitution of Eastern European women and forced labor at an Indian restaurant in Paris. They are initially sold together as prostitutes to a brothel, but are later separated when Sita is sold as a drug mule to transport heroine from India to France. Despite their best attempts to escape danger, they find themselves trapped and enslaved, and repeatedly witness the monetary exchanges that dictate their next affliction as they are passed between various slave owners.

Yet for all these emotional components, his writing ultimately cannot overcome a trite plot and stereotypical character representations.Īfter a tsunami destroys a coastal town in India, sisters Ahalya and Sita are left to fend for themselves when their family perishes. In the novel, he takes real-life reports of human trafficking, constructs a compelling narrative from these accounts, and infuses a troubling subject matter with victims that display human vitality and love. By dint of his own life as a lawyer with a strong interest in international human rights, Addison’s experiences position him well to write this story. Addison’s novel is an admirable attempt to depict slavery in both developed and developing countries across the novel, he explores sexual exploitation, forced labor, and drug dealing. “What does a slave look like to you?” one character asks another in “A Walk Across the Sun.” “Appearances can be deceiving.” The central focus of Corban Addison’s debut novel is the covert and pervasive influence of human trafficking around the world this hidden trade comes to light through an American lawyer’s exploration of the disturbing world of modern slavery.

A walk across the sun