SOURCE: "A Novel to Enjoy and Remember," Freedomways, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1980, pp. 101-02.

In the following review, Wilson praises Childress's rich characterization and dialogue in A Short Walk.

Alice Childress has written a remarkable book [A Short Walk] that takes its title from the answer given by protagonist Cora James' father to the question "What is life?"—which she asks him at age five while watching a minstrel show. Life, he responds, is "a short walk from the cradle to the grave … and it sure behooves us to be kind to one another along the way." On the same occasion, when a storm threatens to erupt out of a black performer's impromptu musical discourse on oppression, Cora's father counsels, "Let all run that wants to run, Cora. We stay put where we are, so's not to get trampled."

Deeply influenced by her relationship with her father (which relationship, incidentally...