'A WALKING GUIDE' Emphasis on male ego is tiresome

The main character is frequently helped out of jams by women.
By COLLEEN LONG
ASSOCIATED PRESS
"A Walking Guide," by Alan S. Cowell (Simon & amp; Schuster, $23)
Being a male foreign correspondent is like belonging to some exclusive club that ordinary people will never be a part of.
At least that's what Alan S. Cowell, former correspondent for Reuters and The New York Times, implies in his first novel, "A Walking Guide."
The book centers on Joe Shelby, once a fearless war correspondent but who is now crippled by a mysterious neuromuscular disease. It opens as Shelby is planning to trek up a mountain in England, purportedly to prove to himself and his lovely South African girlfriend, Eva Kimberly, that he can still hack it although one side of his body is limp.
The following chapters weave his mountain journey with flashbacks from covering wars with his partner and former lover, Faria Duclos, a beautiful but somewhat crazed French woman with a cocaine habit.
Cowell's war scenes are graphic and vivid, and obviously from a very personal perspective.
Whiny
But Cowell's novel falters in other areas. His detached writing makes it difficult for readers to empathize with Shelby, who begins to sound whiny as he struggles to the summit.
"And all the while the rest of us with MND and MS and all the rest of the mysteries are crying out in the darkness and saying why? Why did this happen? Explain it, doctor, please. And you know all about self-pity. You don't just say why, you say: why me?"
Shelby's bravado and stoicism also seem a bit misguided because he is surrounded by women to help him out of situations. For example, he meets Kimberly on assignment in South Africa while he is looking to escape the intensity of his relationship with Duclos.
Later, as his disease progresses, he is saved by Duclos when he is caught in crossfire on assignment.
The novel would have been better if it dealt more with Shelby's experience as a war correspondent and less with his ego.