Braving the Glass Path

Swamps and I randomly found Alma Fullerton’s book titled Walking on Glass while coming back from a walk. The mysterious book we found was on loan from the local public library. Being civically conscious, we decided to return the book to the library on our next walk. During the interim, I decided to read Fullerton’s book since it was short and had an interesting title.

Fullerton's debut novel is a free verse story, written as journal entries from an unnamed protagonist. The central character is a teenage boy living in California and dabbling in west coast gang culture. The story focuses on the unnamed boy's attempt to come to term with his mother's failed suicide attempt, her current vegetative state, and his inability to ease his and her suffering.

The novel is thought provoking in not what it says, but what it leaves unsaid for the reader to ponder. What would you do if you had to watch someone you love lay in an unresponsive vegetative state? Would you stay hopeful of their recovery, even when doctors believe otherwise, or would you want to commit euthanasia on them, not to kill them, but as a why to set them free?