SOURCE: Firchow, Peter. Review of Walking Possession, by Ian Hamilton. World Literature Today 71, no. 3 (summer 1997): 596-97.

In the following review, Firchow offers a mixed assessment of Hamilton's Walking Possession.

Despite the suggestion in the odd title of this book that its contents will represent the accumulated ravings of a perambulatory lunatic, Ian Hamilton's assorted reflections on life and letters in Britain (and, to a lesser extent, the United States) during the latter half of the twentieth century are mostly characterized by their unusual sanity and sensibility. This is true, as it turns out, even of the title itself [Walking Possession], with Hamilton explaining in a brief foreword that he means to allude to a longstanding Grub Street tradition which provides for a fortnight's grace period following the seizure of one's belongings (i.e., the titular possessions) for nonpayment of debt. Viewed metaphorically, this is supposedly rather like the...