Walking the Llano: A Texas Memoir of Place

Books are rarely about what they’re “about.” This seems especially true with memoirs. A great memoir is often descriptive and detailed because the author found a passion for something that helped distract from something else. Something powerful, too powerful to face at the time. This is why few memoirs I’ve enjoyed have a sequel. That part of life has been processed and put away.

The thing the author is trying to distract themselves from tends to bleed into the story eventually. In Shelley Armitage’s case, it is loss. This memoir of place becomes a memoir of coping. When she’s ready, Armitage reveals what prompted her to dive deeper into the history of her surroundings. Why now. Not with a direct explanation but by dropping in glimpses of her life outside of the Panhandle arroyos. One doesn’t need commentary to understand the appeal of escaping beyond the reach of cell phones.

And yet, this book remains a compelling portrait of a landscape rarely praised. An expanse of land that has been inhabited for thousands of years and dismissed by all outsiders for just as long. Armitage has convinced me that it deserves to be celebrated and protected beyond the state parks.

A unexpectedly great book. If anyone had told me I’d be giving five stars to a book about the Panhandle from the OU Press, I’d’ve laughed them back across the Red River where they belong. And yet…