Walking to Mercury

Earnest and too long, Starhawk's prequel to The Fifth Sacred Thing tells the story of 38-year-old Maya Greenwood's pilgrimage to Nepal. Maya literally carries her personal baggage in her backpack, which contains her dead mother's ashes, as well as letters and journal entries from past and present lovers. Most of the novel is devoted to Maya's account of her life so far, and the key emotional, spiritual and political impressions and awakenings that will open her up to become a great ecofeminist leader in the next century. Having dropped out of high school after being disciplined for indulging in LSD and making out with her best girlfriend, Johanna Weaver, Maya falls in love with an impulsive alcoholic and helps build People's Park in San Francisco. Years later, she becomes a well-known writer and teacher of ritual and magic workshops, but when her mother dies of cancer, Maya begins to question her ""open, bisexual, long-running affair"" with Johanna and her relationship to nature. There are few surprises in this novel. All the loose ends are tied up, predictably enough at a political demonstration at a nuclear test site in Nevada. A natural writer, Starhawk unapologetically aims her story at an audience of converts who will immediately sympathize when Maya likens a bout of shyness to ""the time I met Alice Walker at the homeless benefit and couldn't bring myself to say anything."" Maya's sincerity and sweet-natured intensity may be enough to carry the story for the uninitiated, but, ultimately, Maya's touchstones seem like a pile of cliches and banalities. Starhawk's legion of admirers, however, should find this an affirming tale. Author tour. (Feb.)