A Walk Across the Sun, by Corban Addison

In his debut novel, A Walk Across the Sun, Corban Addison shows that lawyers, at least this lawyer, has a big heart and can tell a great story.  Like many of John Grisham's novels, A Walk Across the Sun has an important social/ethical message which takes priority over the story telling and writing.  Nevertheless, Addison does a great job of communicating an important message, raising awareness of human trafficking by telling the story of two of its victims.

The story opens with Sita and Ahalya getting swept away by the December 26 tsunami in India.  Their entire family killed, and their home destroyed, they attempt to find help but end up kidnapped and sold into slavery, held in a brothel.  Meanwhile, Thomas Clarke, an American lawyer whose wife is Indian, comes to India to work for an organization dedicated to freeing victims of human trafficking.  Most of the story has Thomas tracking down Sita as she is trafficked to France and the U.S.

The strength of the novel is Addison's putting a very human face on human trafficking.  It's painful to read of the girls' misfortune and abuse, and to imagine the hundreds of times stories like theirs might be repeated every day.  Addison vividly depicts the heartbreaking life and trials of the victims of modern-day slavery, without sensationalizing or being terribly graphic.

The weakness is the rather formulaic plot devices.  As Thomas seeks Sita, we read a long series of chance encounters, lucky breaks, and near misses, which drive the story along while not adding to the richness of the telling.  Addison's writing is very descriptive, even detail-oriented, but for I sometimes felt that it was just filler, adding content to the picture but not meaning.

I had to question a couple of things.  First of all, the girls' dad is an executive for a software company.  I know life in India is very different than the U.S., but wouldn't he have had life insurance?  Some assets?  At least a deed on their property?  In the post-tsunami chaos, that may have all been wiped away, but the sisters never seem to go back home as I thought they might be able to.

Another question was the prevalence of trafficking in mainstream Indian society.  Thomas's college friend takes him to a club patronized by Western-educated, middle class men who solicit sex from trafficked girls.  A blind eye is turned in the courts to brothels, even those who use under-aged girls.  Police are on the payroll.  If Addison's depiction of Indian society is accurate, it's shameful.  Yet some of his descriptions apply to the U.S., too.  Surely some strippers and prostitutes and web-site porn actresses choose their profession freely, and some feel they have no better choice to earn a living but aren't forced into it.  But A Walk Across the Sun confronts the reader with the fact that some of them are forced into such work, abused and held against their will.

This is a good novel on the level of the summer vacation beach read, but with a revealing, challenging message.  Pick it up!