SOURCE: “Upwardly Mobile,” in Women's Review of Books, Vol. XI, Nos. 10-11, July, 1994, p. 48.

In the following review, Levinson outlines the plot of Roadwalkers and comments on the novel's successes and failures.

With Roadwalkers, Shirley Ann Grau has written a distinctly unfashionable book. In an era of identity politics, she is a white woman writing from the perspective of two black women; at a time when no belly-button goes unscrutinized, she offers a novel nearly devoid of psychological musings or insight; and in defiance of every writing teacher's mantra, she tells her tale with little interest in showing action or interaction. It is a high-wire act to warm the hearts of readers who relish broken rules, and one that she pulls off with varying degrees of success.

“In 1934 this is the way it was,” Grau begins this, her ninth work of fiction and the fifth since her 1965 Pulitzer...