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Returning from Vietnam to the family’s Carolina tobacco farm, two Marines find a place that isn’t home anymore. Surrounded by political upheaval, southern prejudices, violence, and soul-deep loss and moral fatigue, they must grapple with respect, reconciliation, love–and letting go. But, then, there are the ghosts …

“If You Walk Long Enough” riveted me back to an era I always wanted to forget. The story is powerful, poignant, real. Nancy Hartney’s words speak for a generation of forgotten young men.

G. Reid

One of the many things I admire about this novel is the way Nancy Hartney layers the experience of trauma so that I came to understand PTSD more deeply. Over the course of the novel, the reader slowly begins to see the effects of both post-war and racial trauma. 

L. Miranda

In her debut novel, Nancy Hartney captures the turmoil of 1970 with the ongoing war in Vietnam and the uncertainty of those who returned to the US still fighting their soldier memories and searching for who they are now. Reid Holcombe, half-owner of a debt-ridden South Carolina tobacco farm, doesn’t want his old life back. But where does that leave his wife, who’s searching for her own identity? The women’s movement and civil rights movement provide the backdrop for this story that will stay with you long after you finish it.

Veda

Hartney’s memorable characters, her vivid descriptions, and her capture of human conflicts rooted in decades of social, racial, and sexual divides make this a fast-paced, engaging read.

G.A.

Hartney’s style is both distinctively Southern and universal, creating memorable characters and placing the reader in the hot sticky South Carolina summer. If You Can Walk Long Enough is a powerful addition to the literature about the Vietnam War and a readable and unforgettable introduction to anyone who did not live in those significant times.

Dr. M. J. Maddox

Nancy Hartney has written a page turner! I’m really into this book. I like the metaphors, the descriptive passages, the dialogue, even though I feel like a slug for having been unsympathetic toward Vietnam Vets. It wasn’t their fault that our leaders sent them down a rabbit hole. 

Her book should win an award. I mean it.

J. Gianna

While Reid  tar-stains his hands through harvest to save the farm from Big Tobacco’s manicured grasp, Hartney draws the reader through time and place, peeling bare his yearning for what he left behind in Vietnam, juxtaposed with haunts.

R.Anderson

“Nancy writes sensitively and powerfully about the after effects on both the veteran and those who love him. As with all wars, the pain is not over when the peace treaty is signed…”

~Dan Baxter, M.D., author of Piano Man, Armed Forces Radio Vietnam veteran