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A Calling for Charlie Barnes
From National Book Award Finalist Joshua Ferris comes a “murderously funny” novel about a modern American family and one man’s attempt to come to understand the many lives of his father. (Janet Maslin, New York Times)
Someone is telling the story of the life of Charlie Barnes, and it doesn't appear to be going well. Too often divorced, discontent with life's compromises and in a house he hates, this lifelong schemer and eternal romantic would like out of his present circumstances and into the American dream. But when the twin calamities of the Great Recession and a cancer scare come along to compound his troubles, his dreams dwindle further, and an infinite past full of forking paths quickly tapers to a black dot.
Then, against all odds, something goes right for a change: Charlie is granted a second act. With help from his storyteller son, he surveys the facts of his life and finds his true calling where he least expects it—in a sacrifice that redounds with selflessness and love—at last becoming the man his son always knew he could be.
A Calling for Charlie Barnes is a profound and tender portrait of a man whose desperate need to be loved is his downfall, and a brutally funny account of how that love is ultimately earned.
Someone is telling the story of the life of Charlie Barnes, and it doesn't appear to be going well. Too often divorced, discontent with life's compromises and in a house he hates, this lifelong schemer and eternal romantic would like out of his present circumstances and into the American dream. But when the twin calamities of the Great Recession and a cancer scare come along to compound his troubles, his dreams dwindle further, and an infinite past full of forking paths quickly tapers to a black dot.
Then, against all odds, something goes right for a change: Charlie is granted a second act. With help from his storyteller son, he surveys the facts of his life and finds his true calling where he least expects it—in a sacrifice that redounds with selflessness and love—at last becoming the man his son always knew he could be.
A Calling for Charlie Barnes is a profound and tender portrait of a man whose desperate need to be loved is his downfall, and a brutally funny account of how that love is ultimately earned.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 28, 2021
About the author
Joshua Ferris
48 books979 followersJoshua Ferris is the author of novels Then We Came to the End, The Unnamed and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour as well as a story collection, The Dinner Party. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and the PEN/Hemingway Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize. He was named one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" writers in 2010. He lives in Hudson, New York with his wife and son.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 518 reviews
October 16, 2021
Well, for those who have read any of Joshua Ferris’s novels, you know that he is a very interesting writer. He loves the absurd. He cleverly writes zany storylines that leave the reader chuckling, guffawing, and sometimes scratching one’s head….what did he just write???
In his recent novel, “A Calling for Charlie Barnes”, Ferris tells his story in a jumbled way. Not only is it not a linear storyline, but the narrator seems to be a bit of an unreliable narrator. Add to that, Ferris’s complex, long, unwieldly sentences, this is one crazy story. “What did I just read?” was a continuous thought of mine, along with “what is going on???”
So, who is Charlie Barnes? We meet Charlie when he’s on his 5th marriage. Ferris has delightful fun with names in this tale. Charlie’s wives are, in order of succession: Sue Starter, Barbara Lefurst, Charley Proffit(who marries Dickie Dickerdick, a detective, after Charlie), Evangeline, and Barbara Leduex. When we meet Charlie, he is contacting everyone he knows who has offended him or harmed him to alert them that he has pancreatic cancer, “not just any cancer. The big kahuna of cancers”. And this is in the year 2008, the great recession on its way. Ferris adeptly incorporates the evils of Bear Stearns and the financial crisis. He also sneaks in the shock of the 2016 Presidential Election.
Again, who is Charlie Barnes? Well, he’s a con man. He’s a swindler. No, he’s a kind man who takes in foster children. He’s a liar. No, he’s a devoted father who ties to keep his children close, even if they are from differing marriages. He is an entrepreneur, although not a successful one. His ideas: the flying toupee (think a toupee as a frisbee), a clown in town franchise(A Clown In Your Town), herbicides(TTAA), and Chippin’ In (a retirement fund…I think…I still am not clear about what it was supposed to be).
The story is about Charlie, a father, businessman, husband, and all around ridiculous. It’s about a son who is a fairly successful author who wants to write his father’s story….the truth of his father. But what exactly is the truth? It’s about a son who reckons with his father’s life and his decline. It’s about family, complicated and messy. Ferris has stated the Charlie is loosely based upon his own father who died in 2014.
Ferris toys with the reader. The first section of the novel is entitled: “Farce, or 105 Rust Road”. Next is: “While Under”; and then “Fiction, or 906 Harmony Drive”; and lastly “The Facts”. Even the narrator, Jake Barnes is a bit of an enigma. What is fact? What is fiction? Who is Charley Barnes? Who is Jake Barnes? Who is telling the story? And that is the point of Ferris’s story. Ferris plays us, and that’s ok with me.
In his recent novel, “A Calling for Charlie Barnes”, Ferris tells his story in a jumbled way. Not only is it not a linear storyline, but the narrator seems to be a bit of an unreliable narrator. Add to that, Ferris’s complex, long, unwieldly sentences, this is one crazy story. “What did I just read?” was a continuous thought of mine, along with “what is going on???”
So, who is Charlie Barnes? We meet Charlie when he’s on his 5th marriage. Ferris has delightful fun with names in this tale. Charlie’s wives are, in order of succession: Sue Starter, Barbara Lefurst, Charley Proffit(who marries Dickie Dickerdick, a detective, after Charlie), Evangeline, and Barbara Leduex. When we meet Charlie, he is contacting everyone he knows who has offended him or harmed him to alert them that he has pancreatic cancer, “not just any cancer. The big kahuna of cancers”. And this is in the year 2008, the great recession on its way. Ferris adeptly incorporates the evils of Bear Stearns and the financial crisis. He also sneaks in the shock of the 2016 Presidential Election.
Again, who is Charlie Barnes? Well, he’s a con man. He’s a swindler. No, he’s a kind man who takes in foster children. He’s a liar. No, he’s a devoted father who ties to keep his children close, even if they are from differing marriages. He is an entrepreneur, although not a successful one. His ideas: the flying toupee (think a toupee as a frisbee), a clown in town franchise(A Clown In Your Town), herbicides(TTAA), and Chippin’ In (a retirement fund…I think…I still am not clear about what it was supposed to be).
The story is about Charlie, a father, businessman, husband, and all around ridiculous. It’s about a son who is a fairly successful author who wants to write his father’s story….the truth of his father. But what exactly is the truth? It’s about a son who reckons with his father’s life and his decline. It’s about family, complicated and messy. Ferris has stated the Charlie is loosely based upon his own father who died in 2014.
Ferris toys with the reader. The first section of the novel is entitled: “Farce, or 105 Rust Road”. Next is: “While Under”; and then “Fiction, or 906 Harmony Drive”; and lastly “The Facts”. Even the narrator, Jake Barnes is a bit of an enigma. What is fact? What is fiction? Who is Charley Barnes? Who is Jake Barnes? Who is telling the story? And that is the point of Ferris’s story. Ferris plays us, and that’s ok with me.
May 4, 2021
Joshua Ferris is a ‘one-of-kind’ author. He’s a funny guy....
people either enjoy his humor — or they don’t.
I hadn’t read anything by him in years —
I’ve read three of his novels — [“Then We Came To The End”, “To Rise Against Again in a Decent Hour”, and “The Unnamed”],
but it seemed like years ago— another time — another world.
So....when I saw that Joshua had this new book ( due out in stores in September), ....I thought.... “Yes, Joshua Ferris was exactly the guy whose writing I was in the mood for” ——[having recently read one too many books on death and a Holocaust history book about Polish women from WWII]...
Absolutely....who couldn’t use a little diversion from heavy-land to funny-land, after a post covid-19....lockdown, house arrest brutal global year.
“A Calling for Charlie Barnes”, hits all the right marks: it’s funny, wicked laugh-out-loud moments, with deeper tragic truths about the human condition. In short: Joshua Ferris is a master of authentic & absurd....insightful as hell. I can’t think of another author who writes quite like him.
His characters are slightly annoying, cranky, crotchety, and sarcastic.
Truthfully....I think this is his best book next to “Then We Came to the End”.
This non-traditional father/storytelling son/search for the American dream/ “Progress is a myth I don’t know how to live without”.....novel ....
was a blast of brilliant enjoyment. ....
Charlie....and his wives....(rather his ex-wife’s), his present wife, his children, friends, clients, a shitty diagnosis, and a son who just might see things a little different about his middle-aged -faithful to his landline/newspaper, father....
is the perfect book for some of us ‘other’ sixty-ish — seventy-ish—year olds!
Besides the self-mocking, sneakily absurd— is a kind of intellectual epiphany about facing ourselves straight-on-that is actually very moving....and we feel the love.
A few teaser tasters excerpts:
“Steady Boy? No one had called him that in thirty, forty years. Back then, Charlie Barnes had found it hard to keep a job, either because the pay was bad, or the boss was a dick, or the work itself was a pain in the ass, and someone, an uncle, probably, dubbed him Steady Boy and the name stuck, the way ‘Tiny’ will stick to a big fat man. Steady Boy’s knocking off early again, Steady Boy’s calling in sick. . . that sort of thing”.
“Steady Boy was Mr. Charles A. Barnes now—sixty-eight years old that morning, a small businessman and father of four, and likely to live forever”.
Steady Boy had cancer.
“But hey, not just any cancer. The big kahuna of cancers: pancreatic.
“His third wife was fatefully
named Charley— note, however the minor yet tantalizing variant spelling, which effeminized his ho-hum handle to which wild sensual effect that it drove him crazy just thinking about it. They were Charlie & Charley of Danville, Illinois.
Charley was a local beauty.
She looked just like Ali MacGraw in ‘Love Story’ although her confidence and sass were more in keeping with the sitcom star of the day, that Mary Tyler Moore. But then Charley Proffit of Peoria, Illinois, decided to start sucking someone new, so the third time wasn’t the charm for Charlie Barnes after all. You had to marvel that he would marry a fourth time, let alone a fifth. . .but hope springeth eternal, and where hope is, change can’t be far behind. His fifth marriage was alive and well, and not simply because timewise, pancreatic cancer will always move faster than divorce proceedings. With his earlier wives, he was a work in progress: a scoundrel to some, a salvage job to others, a real slow learner all around. . .but here he was with the nurse at First Baptist, in a successful union at last. The kids didn’t care for her much, especially Marcy in a bad mood, but he couldn’t worry about that. He had this one thing going for him, and he wouldn’t fuck it up for the world”.
Smart, ... incredibly funny, incredibly tragic, incredibly human.....and a reminder we all want to love and be loved!
Thank You Little Brown and Company, Netgalley, and Joshua Ferris
people either enjoy his humor — or they don’t.
I hadn’t read anything by him in years —
I’ve read three of his novels — [“Then We Came To The End”, “To Rise Against Again in a Decent Hour”, and “The Unnamed”],
but it seemed like years ago— another time — another world.
So....when I saw that Joshua had this new book ( due out in stores in September), ....I thought.... “Yes, Joshua Ferris was exactly the guy whose writing I was in the mood for” ——[having recently read one too many books on death and a Holocaust history book about Polish women from WWII]...
Absolutely....who couldn’t use a little diversion from heavy-land to funny-land, after a post covid-19....lockdown, house arrest brutal global year.
“A Calling for Charlie Barnes”, hits all the right marks: it’s funny, wicked laugh-out-loud moments, with deeper tragic truths about the human condition. In short: Joshua Ferris is a master of authentic & absurd....insightful as hell. I can’t think of another author who writes quite like him.
His characters are slightly annoying, cranky, crotchety, and sarcastic.
Truthfully....I think this is his best book next to “Then We Came to the End”.
This non-traditional father/storytelling son/search for the American dream/ “Progress is a myth I don’t know how to live without”.....novel ....
was a blast of brilliant enjoyment. ....
Charlie....and his wives....(rather his ex-wife’s), his present wife, his children, friends, clients, a shitty diagnosis, and a son who just might see things a little different about his middle-aged -faithful to his landline/newspaper, father....
is the perfect book for some of us ‘other’ sixty-ish — seventy-ish—year olds!
Besides the self-mocking, sneakily absurd— is a kind of intellectual epiphany about facing ourselves straight-on-that is actually very moving....and we feel the love.
A few teaser tasters excerpts:
“Steady Boy? No one had called him that in thirty, forty years. Back then, Charlie Barnes had found it hard to keep a job, either because the pay was bad, or the boss was a dick, or the work itself was a pain in the ass, and someone, an uncle, probably, dubbed him Steady Boy and the name stuck, the way ‘Tiny’ will stick to a big fat man. Steady Boy’s knocking off early again, Steady Boy’s calling in sick. . . that sort of thing”.
“Steady Boy was Mr. Charles A. Barnes now—sixty-eight years old that morning, a small businessman and father of four, and likely to live forever”.
Steady Boy had cancer.
“But hey, not just any cancer. The big kahuna of cancers: pancreatic.
“His third wife was fatefully
named Charley— note, however the minor yet tantalizing variant spelling, which effeminized his ho-hum handle to which wild sensual effect that it drove him crazy just thinking about it. They were Charlie & Charley of Danville, Illinois.
Charley was a local beauty.
She looked just like Ali MacGraw in ‘Love Story’ although her confidence and sass were more in keeping with the sitcom star of the day, that Mary Tyler Moore. But then Charley Proffit of Peoria, Illinois, decided to start sucking someone new, so the third time wasn’t the charm for Charlie Barnes after all. You had to marvel that he would marry a fourth time, let alone a fifth. . .but hope springeth eternal, and where hope is, change can’t be far behind. His fifth marriage was alive and well, and not simply because timewise, pancreatic cancer will always move faster than divorce proceedings. With his earlier wives, he was a work in progress: a scoundrel to some, a salvage job to others, a real slow learner all around. . .but here he was with the nurse at First Baptist, in a successful union at last. The kids didn’t care for her much, especially Marcy in a bad mood, but he couldn’t worry about that. He had this one thing going for him, and he wouldn’t fuck it up for the world”.
Smart, ... incredibly funny, incredibly tragic, incredibly human.....and a reminder we all want to love and be loved!
Thank You Little Brown and Company, Netgalley, and Joshua Ferris
October 30, 2021
Yeah, right. Like reliability exists anywhere anymore, like that's still a thing.
It wasn't until its final third that I realized just how twisty and metafictional this novel was, because I was so busy being entertained by Ferris' energetic and razor-sharp comic prose, which pierces the absurdity of early-21st-century American life. Just when I thought Ferris had all the pieces of the narrative locked in place, and when I was certain of the basic facts, he reshuffles the puzzle into an entirely different shape. The effect is shocking, but also deeply moving, probing all of the awkward places and unspoken hurt in a dysfunctional father-son relationship.
In the novel's first section, Farce, Jake Barnes, a (possibly) famous novelist in his mid-40s, has novelized the worst morning in the life of his father. Charlie is a washed-up Midwestern American failure at 68, with a failing money-management business and a million failed get-rick-quick schemes and short stints as a salesman behind him. It's the fall of 2008, with the country on the brink of a massive financial crisis.
On his fifth (or maybe fourth) marriage and alienated from his (at least) three thoroughly messed-up adult children, Charlie picks up the phone in the basement of his dumpy suburban Chicagoland house to hear a certain death sentence: a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Ferris keeps multiple plates spinning, refusing any kind of resolution or certainty, ramping up the tension and bleakness as Charlie calls the important people in his life, seeking consolation and sympathy he might not deserve. Will the kids believe this chronic hypochondriac enough to want to repair their relationship with him? Is the diagnosis a real thing, or just a Googled self-diagnosis?
In the second section, Fiction, Jake moves back into his father's house to assist his hated stepmother with the nursing duties while Charlie undergoes surgery and chemo. He writes one possible life-story for his restless father, piecing together what he thinks he knows of the details of Charlie's marriages, divorces, and his manifold failures as a parent and businessman. But Jake's reliability as a narrator is self-undermining, and increasingly questionable.
Especially after Charlie becomes the luckiest man alive, (possibly but maybe not) surviving a near-death sentence to enjoy a second act of successful American life. After Jake shares the first section of this novel with his family members, all of whom are incredulous, shocked, and hurt by just how deceitful and judgmental this version of events really is. In the third and final section, Facts, we finally realize that Jake simply can't be trusted with anything, destabilizing everything we thought we knew about him and Charlie.
Thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown for giving me a free ARC of this in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
It wasn't until its final third that I realized just how twisty and metafictional this novel was, because I was so busy being entertained by Ferris' energetic and razor-sharp comic prose, which pierces the absurdity of early-21st-century American life. Just when I thought Ferris had all the pieces of the narrative locked in place, and when I was certain of the basic facts, he reshuffles the puzzle into an entirely different shape. The effect is shocking, but also deeply moving, probing all of the awkward places and unspoken hurt in a dysfunctional father-son relationship.
In the novel's first section, Farce, Jake Barnes, a (possibly) famous novelist in his mid-40s, has novelized the worst morning in the life of his father. Charlie is a washed-up Midwestern American failure at 68, with a failing money-management business and a million failed get-rick-quick schemes and short stints as a salesman behind him. It's the fall of 2008, with the country on the brink of a massive financial crisis.
On his fifth (or maybe fourth) marriage and alienated from his (at least) three thoroughly messed-up adult children, Charlie picks up the phone in the basement of his dumpy suburban Chicagoland house to hear a certain death sentence: a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Ferris keeps multiple plates spinning, refusing any kind of resolution or certainty, ramping up the tension and bleakness as Charlie calls the important people in his life, seeking consolation and sympathy he might not deserve. Will the kids believe this chronic hypochondriac enough to want to repair their relationship with him? Is the diagnosis a real thing, or just a Googled self-diagnosis?
In the second section, Fiction, Jake moves back into his father's house to assist his hated stepmother with the nursing duties while Charlie undergoes surgery and chemo. He writes one possible life-story for his restless father, piecing together what he thinks he knows of the details of Charlie's marriages, divorces, and his manifold failures as a parent and businessman. But Jake's reliability as a narrator is self-undermining, and increasingly questionable.
Especially after Charlie becomes the luckiest man alive, (possibly but maybe not) surviving a near-death sentence to enjoy a second act of successful American life. After Jake shares the first section of this novel with his family members, all of whom are incredulous, shocked, and hurt by just how deceitful and judgmental this version of events really is. In the third and final section, Facts, we finally realize that Jake simply can't be trusted with anything, destabilizing everything we thought we knew about him and Charlie.
Thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown for giving me a free ARC of this in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
November 2, 2023
When I started this book, I underestimated it. Didn't read anyone else's opinion, review, thought it would be a breezy interlude. Which is one of the reasons why it hit me so hard. A son's means of honoring his father in the best way he knows. In an interview, Joshua Ferris admits that Charlie Barnes is a stand-in for his own father, but not a facsimile. He also admits that the book leans heavily on the subject of masculinity and very little on feminism. Read this one carefully, enjoy all Ferris's twists and sidetracks, and you'll have a hell of a good time with a catch in your heart.
September 13, 2021
4.5
"All this happened, more or less." -- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
If you've read Joshua Ferris before (Then We Came To The End, etc.), you know he loves toying with perspective and narration. And this novel might be his greatest trick yet.
What we think we're reading is a "Man Called Ove"-esque story about an old guy named Charlie Barnes. Charlie has had five wives, several kids, and even more failed attempts at getting rich quick, including a toupee frisbee, a clown college, and his own investment firm. Now, at 68 years old, and apparently having just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he still hasn't found his calling
But then, soon, we start to wonder about who is telling us this story. Is this narrator unreliable, or just lying to us, or both? Does it even matter, because as this narrator tells us "Like reliability exists anywhere anymore, like that's still a thing"?
So through the story of Charlie Barnes and his wives and kids and failures, Ferris gives us a comment on the nature of fiction, non-fiction, family history, legend, myth, and storytelling generally. "Facts are full of dreary compromises and dead ends. Stare at them long enough and you'll go insane."
This novel is infinitely quotable, and often laugh-out-loud funny. "What self-deceptions we require to get out of bed in the morning," e.g. And the fact that it's a lot of fun to read is a good thing, because for a large part of this novel, you're pretty sure Ferris is playing a trick on you. You're just not quite sure what it is.
One of the important aspects of reading any novel, I think, is being able to trust the writer. Here, we don't trust the narrator one bit. Which is part of the point. However, if you trust Ferris to bring you home, and he absolutely does here, then you're in for a hugely rewarding, really eye-opening, really fun reading experience.
"All this happened, more or less." -- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
If you've read Joshua Ferris before (Then We Came To The End, etc.), you know he loves toying with perspective and narration. And this novel might be his greatest trick yet.
What we think we're reading is a "Man Called Ove"-esque story about an old guy named Charlie Barnes. Charlie has had five wives, several kids, and even more failed attempts at getting rich quick, including a toupee frisbee, a clown college, and his own investment firm. Now, at 68 years old, and apparently having just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he still hasn't found his calling
But then, soon, we start to wonder about who is telling us this story. Is this narrator unreliable, or just lying to us, or both? Does it even matter, because as this narrator tells us "Like reliability exists anywhere anymore, like that's still a thing"?
So through the story of Charlie Barnes and his wives and kids and failures, Ferris gives us a comment on the nature of fiction, non-fiction, family history, legend, myth, and storytelling generally. "Facts are full of dreary compromises and dead ends. Stare at them long enough and you'll go insane."
This novel is infinitely quotable, and often laugh-out-loud funny. "What self-deceptions we require to get out of bed in the morning," e.g. And the fact that it's a lot of fun to read is a good thing, because for a large part of this novel, you're pretty sure Ferris is playing a trick on you. You're just not quite sure what it is.
One of the important aspects of reading any novel, I think, is being able to trust the writer. Here, we don't trust the narrator one bit. Which is part of the point. However, if you trust Ferris to bring you home, and he absolutely does here, then you're in for a hugely rewarding, really eye-opening, really fun reading experience.
December 4, 2021
I really loved this book and I’m not sure why it’s not getting more love from the book community. Maybe because it’s a WMFU novel but hey a lot of white men and white women identify with same.
If I thought this would become a classic I’d give it 5 stars but it won’t and I’m very stingy with my stars ergo 4 stars. It’s humorous, it’s astute about life and it has language that borders on poetic. One passage I especially loved was a description of the little theater where Charlie Barnes met his second (or was it his third?) wife. I read it aloud to my theater friend and she said she had never heard a better written description of what it’s like to be in a theater. These writing/reading gems are what I live for…well that and grandkids.
Joshua Ferris is one author that I would like to read all of his work.
If I thought this would become a classic I’d give it 5 stars but it won’t and I’m very stingy with my stars ergo 4 stars. It’s humorous, it’s astute about life and it has language that borders on poetic. One passage I especially loved was a description of the little theater where Charlie Barnes met his second (or was it his third?) wife. I read it aloud to my theater friend and she said she had never heard a better written description of what it’s like to be in a theater. These writing/reading gems are what I live for…well that and grandkids.
Joshua Ferris is one author that I would like to read all of his work.
August 25, 2022
This was an entertaining read, but a bit of a slow burner. It wasn't until I got past about page 30 or so that I really wanted to go all the way with Charlie. There is a fantastic little twist in the second half of the book so suffice it to say that there might be more to Charlie Barnes than we see in the first half of the book. It is darkly humorous and does make me curious to read other fiction from Joshua Ferris.
January 26, 2023
Steady Boy
Un romanzo che in teoria ha come soggetto la biografia (anomala, non lineare, saltellante nel tempo, con una quantità di flashback e non poche correzioni e rettifiche, alcune determinanti) dell’uomo cui è intitolato il romanzo, Charlie Barnes: già con cinque matrimoni alle spalle, quattro figli e innumerevoli lavori e imprese più o meno fallite, ma ancora saldo (“Steady Boy”) nella determinazione di inseguire il “sogno americano”, salvo poi inveire contro chi ha corrotto le regole del gioco truccandone le carte; la narrazione parte non a caso nel 2008, allo scoppio della bolla dei mutui subprime.
In pratica invece, “Ultima chiamata per Charlie Barnes” (ma l’aggettivo “ultima” è un’invenzione della traduzione italiana…) si rivela un romanzo sulla finzione, a partire dal fatto che il narratore, come veniamo gradualmente a scoprire, è un figlio adottivo del protagonista, animato a sua volta da affetto per il patrigno e da sentimenti contrastanti, rancori, pregiudizi e vecchie ruggini che coinvolgono altri componenti della famiglia. Abbiamo quindi un racconto filtrato: dallo sfuggente, inossidabile e contraddittorio Charlie, dal narratore che interagisce con i personaggi e in ultima analisi da Ferris stesso che confonde abilmente le carte, affermando fra l’altro in un’intervista che Charlie è una figura modellata su suo padre…!
A plasmare e in qualche modo aiutarci a dipanare il complesso quadro risultante, sta per nostra fortuna lo stile accattivante, divertente e originale di Joshua Ferris, un autore molto abile nell’affrontare con profondità ma anche con leggerezza, argomenti duri come il licenziamento (“E poi siamo arrivati alla fine”), la malattia mentale (“Non conosco il tuo nome”) o perfino, in questo romanzo, il cancro, tema che in genere evito, ma che l’autore qui utilizza come snodo narrativo non privo di virtuosismi che ribaltano la vita di Charlie e quindi la trama del racconto.
Uno stile che richiama maestri dell’affabulazione come Philip Roth (c’è qui qualche eco del rothiano “Patrimonio”), Michael Chabon ed anche, come mi è stato facile collegare avendolo letto poco fa, il protagonista di “Corri Coniglio”; al punto che in un passo di questo romanzo il narratore/figliastro afferma “…mio padre, un modello abbastanza standard della metà del secolo scorso, un personaggio di Updike nei suoi difetti e nelle sue debolezze, innamorato del sogno americano e impossibile da ammazzare”.
A differenza di Roth, Ferris non sembra destinato a diventare un caposaldo della letteratura contemporanea, ma è sempre avvincente, soprattutto in questa metanarrazione dove, sapientemente dosati, emergono elementi che entrano risoluti nel merito del rapporto realtà/narrazione, del potere che si acquisisce quando si controlla la narrazione, ma anche dei rischi connessi, come impara a sue spese Jake il personaggio/scrittore narrante. A sua discolpa va considerata la parata di individui caratteriali che popolano queste pagine e la famiglia Barnes, ovvero come uno sfiduciato Jake confessa rivolto al lettore “… se è la coerenza che cercate, sarà meglio che leggiate la storia di un’altra famiglia”
Un romanzo che in teoria ha come soggetto la biografia (anomala, non lineare, saltellante nel tempo, con una quantità di flashback e non poche correzioni e rettifiche, alcune determinanti) dell’uomo cui è intitolato il romanzo, Charlie Barnes: già con cinque matrimoni alle spalle, quattro figli e innumerevoli lavori e imprese più o meno fallite, ma ancora saldo (“Steady Boy”) nella determinazione di inseguire il “sogno americano”, salvo poi inveire contro chi ha corrotto le regole del gioco truccandone le carte; la narrazione parte non a caso nel 2008, allo scoppio della bolla dei mutui subprime.
In pratica invece, “Ultima chiamata per Charlie Barnes” (ma l’aggettivo “ultima” è un’invenzione della traduzione italiana…) si rivela un romanzo sulla finzione, a partire dal fatto che il narratore, come veniamo gradualmente a scoprire, è un figlio adottivo del protagonista, animato a sua volta da affetto per il patrigno e da sentimenti contrastanti, rancori, pregiudizi e vecchie ruggini che coinvolgono altri componenti della famiglia. Abbiamo quindi un racconto filtrato: dallo sfuggente, inossidabile e contraddittorio Charlie, dal narratore che interagisce con i personaggi e in ultima analisi da Ferris stesso che confonde abilmente le carte, affermando fra l’altro in un’intervista che Charlie è una figura modellata su suo padre…!
A plasmare e in qualche modo aiutarci a dipanare il complesso quadro risultante, sta per nostra fortuna lo stile accattivante, divertente e originale di Joshua Ferris, un autore molto abile nell’affrontare con profondità ma anche con leggerezza, argomenti duri come il licenziamento (“E poi siamo arrivati alla fine”), la malattia mentale (“Non conosco il tuo nome”) o perfino, in questo romanzo, il cancro, tema che in genere evito, ma che l’autore qui utilizza come snodo narrativo non privo di virtuosismi che ribaltano la vita di Charlie e quindi la trama del racconto.
Uno stile che richiama maestri dell’affabulazione come Philip Roth (c’è qui qualche eco del rothiano “Patrimonio”), Michael Chabon ed anche, come mi è stato facile collegare avendolo letto poco fa, il protagonista di “Corri Coniglio”; al punto che in un passo di questo romanzo il narratore/figliastro afferma “…mio padre, un modello abbastanza standard della metà del secolo scorso, un personaggio di Updike nei suoi difetti e nelle sue debolezze, innamorato del sogno americano e impossibile da ammazzare”.
A differenza di Roth, Ferris non sembra destinato a diventare un caposaldo della letteratura contemporanea, ma è sempre avvincente, soprattutto in questa metanarrazione dove, sapientemente dosati, emergono elementi che entrano risoluti nel merito del rapporto realtà/narrazione, del potere che si acquisisce quando si controlla la narrazione, ma anche dei rischi connessi, come impara a sue spese Jake il personaggio/scrittore narrante. A sua discolpa va considerata la parata di individui caratteriali che popolano queste pagine e la famiglia Barnes, ovvero come uno sfiduciato Jake confessa rivolto al lettore “… se è la coerenza che cercate, sarà meglio che leggiate la storia di un’altra famiglia”
September 14, 2021
This book had its shining moments, but then it ruined those moments by all the other moments where the book was boring, pretentious, confusing, and too unreliable by far. Charlie Barnes is facing a possible cancer diagnoses, and the possibility of a life not lived up to his expectations. He's spent most of his life drifting between jobs, and marriages, and now that he's in his 60s his children are scattered, his life is set in a certain track, and it may all be coming to end. If the cancer doesn't get him, the economic collapse of 2008 certainly will. And so begins the story of Charlie Barnes, but hold onto your hats because the story will change about half way through the book, and then change again toward the end.
If I had a solid footing on what the point of this book was, I would definitely have enjoyed it more. It seems to say something about a certain generation of drifters, and how they fare now that their youth is behind them, and the world is a little less forgiving of them. It seems to say something about aging, and taking stock of yourself, and the bonds of family, and the way family members see each other differently, and how that changes the telling of a single person. But these things are just wisps of ideas that aren't fully fleshed out, and at the end of the day it's a story about a pathetic, stupid white male who is facing his mortality. And this is not an original idea, or an original character.
When I read Then We Came to the End 15 years ago, I loved it. I always hold out hope for Joshua Ferris, but I wonder if his first novel was just a fluke, or if I read it now would I hate it? The longer I live, the more I realize that white authors just do not write interesting books.
If I had a solid footing on what the point of this book was, I would definitely have enjoyed it more. It seems to say something about a certain generation of drifters, and how they fare now that their youth is behind them, and the world is a little less forgiving of them. It seems to say something about aging, and taking stock of yourself, and the bonds of family, and the way family members see each other differently, and how that changes the telling of a single person. But these things are just wisps of ideas that aren't fully fleshed out, and at the end of the day it's a story about a pathetic, stupid white male who is facing his mortality. And this is not an original idea, or an original character.
When I read Then We Came to the End 15 years ago, I loved it. I always hold out hope for Joshua Ferris, but I wonder if his first novel was just a fluke, or if I read it now would I hate it? The longer I live, the more I realize that white authors just do not write interesting books.
September 29, 2021
Joshua Ferris’s newest book, “A Calling for Charlie Barnes”, is one of those novels almost guaranteed to evoke ratings from 1 to 5. I thought it was brilliant, but other readers, used to more conventional work, probably won’t.
Charlie Barnes is a kind of Midwestern “every man”. Born and raised in poverty by two parents forced to marry, he grew up in Danville, Illinois. But Charlie is a schemer and wants to be a success in life. He’s a man with a million entrepreneurial ideas, none of which ever pan out. Having repeated his parents’ mistakes, he marries and fathers a son at 18. His first wife is the first of five wives and he accumulates three children by birth and one by informal adoption. The book is written by the adopted son, who is in all terms an unreliable narrator. But what IS the truth of a man’s life?
I really enjoyed this book. Set during the economic troubles of 2007 and 2008, it sets the stage for how it was we lived then. Ferris talks about some of real people and companies, including his strange fixation on a real guy named Jimmy Cayne. I wasn’t sure what was up with these confusing references to a real person.
Charlie Barnes is a kind of Midwestern “every man”. Born and raised in poverty by two parents forced to marry, he grew up in Danville, Illinois. But Charlie is a schemer and wants to be a success in life. He’s a man with a million entrepreneurial ideas, none of which ever pan out. Having repeated his parents’ mistakes, he marries and fathers a son at 18. His first wife is the first of five wives and he accumulates three children by birth and one by informal adoption. The book is written by the adopted son, who is in all terms an unreliable narrator. But what IS the truth of a man’s life?
I really enjoyed this book. Set during the economic troubles of 2007 and 2008, it sets the stage for how it was we lived then. Ferris talks about some of real people and companies, including his strange fixation on a real guy named Jimmy Cayne. I wasn’t sure what was up with these confusing references to a real person.
September 3, 2021
This novel has a frenetic energy which could either attract or repel a reader based on mood, expectation, and openness of mind. For me, the characters (based on the author's real life) are too much. And the narrative voice is a distraction. Where in And Then We Came to the End the first person plural enhanced the book, in this novel it doesn't gel.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance review copy.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance review copy.
November 18, 2021
What a book! May be my favorite I’ve read in 2021. Certainly top 3. Didn’t want it to end. The audio version is excellent, read by Nick Offerman.
January 19, 2022
This novel is a son's song of love for his father. The father, Charlie Barnes, is like all men -- an enigma and an open book, a larger-than-life hero to his children when they are small and an irksome disappointment when they are teens and young adults, a confounding mix of outward appearance and inner lack of self-awareness.
The story begins in September 2008, on a day Charlie Barnes is dying at the age of 68 with pancreatic cancer, and that day is a long one for Charlie during which a lot happens. Over the course of the book, we learn all about Charlie: his childhood with his dad Alden and mom Delwina and younger brother Rudy; his five marriages to, in order, Sue Starter and Barbara Lefurst and Charley Proffit and Evangeline and Barbara Ledeux; his kids Jerry and Jake and Marcy (and maybe Karen); his many jobs and gigs and gonna-take-off-and-change-the-world best ideas ever.
There is more going on here, though, than just Charlie's life story, though that alone is rich and entertaining and poignant and real. The book is divided into four sections, and those divisions have an over-arching meaning. If you get the sense that you have an unreliable narrator, you're not wrong. But the narrator readily admits that throughout, as exemplified by this one excerpt:
"If this history of Charlie Barnes has its breaks in chronology and the occasional gaping hole -- if, that is, it seems an individually curated, perhaps even highly selective account of the man, and not the straight dope, as it were -- well, I wouldn't know how to write it any other way. I couldn't possibly hope to highlight what the man himself would have highlighted or, for that matter, present the arguments he might have presented against what I have chosen to highlight. Imagine that: for every life, not one history but as many as there are people who observed and participated in that life; hundreds, if not thousands, of accounts for just one of the billions of human beings who have lived and died, a staggering proliferation of competing narratives that, no matter how close, can never be reconciled. ... I bring this up only to suggest that I do not have a lock on the truth, provided there is such a thing, and that, in fact, when we consider the necessarily curated nature of any narrated life, its omissions as well as its trending hash-tags, if you will, we are forced to conclude that every history, including our own first-person accounts, is a fiction of a sort. Or, as Wallace Stevens put it much more succinctly, 'The false and true are one.'"
Man on man do I love Joshua Ferris' writing.
The story begins in September 2008, on a day Charlie Barnes is dying at the age of 68 with pancreatic cancer, and that day is a long one for Charlie during which a lot happens. Over the course of the book, we learn all about Charlie: his childhood with his dad Alden and mom Delwina and younger brother Rudy; his five marriages to, in order, Sue Starter and Barbara Lefurst and Charley Proffit and Evangeline and Barbara Ledeux; his kids Jerry and Jake and Marcy (and maybe Karen); his many jobs and gigs and gonna-take-off-and-change-the-world best ideas ever.
There is more going on here, though, than just Charlie's life story, though that alone is rich and entertaining and poignant and real. The book is divided into four sections, and those divisions have an over-arching meaning. If you get the sense that you have an unreliable narrator, you're not wrong. But the narrator readily admits that throughout, as exemplified by this one excerpt:
"If this history of Charlie Barnes has its breaks in chronology and the occasional gaping hole -- if, that is, it seems an individually curated, perhaps even highly selective account of the man, and not the straight dope, as it were -- well, I wouldn't know how to write it any other way. I couldn't possibly hope to highlight what the man himself would have highlighted or, for that matter, present the arguments he might have presented against what I have chosen to highlight. Imagine that: for every life, not one history but as many as there are people who observed and participated in that life; hundreds, if not thousands, of accounts for just one of the billions of human beings who have lived and died, a staggering proliferation of competing narratives that, no matter how close, can never be reconciled. ... I bring this up only to suggest that I do not have a lock on the truth, provided there is such a thing, and that, in fact, when we consider the necessarily curated nature of any narrated life, its omissions as well as its trending hash-tags, if you will, we are forced to conclude that every history, including our own first-person accounts, is a fiction of a sort. Or, as Wallace Stevens put it much more succinctly, 'The false and true are one.'"
Man on man do I love Joshua Ferris' writing.
June 3, 2022
edit: Oh so close to five stars, but not quite. Call it 4.5.
Terrific example of a novel with an unreliable narrator. What an ending! (no spoiler from me! How does one describe this novel? Vonnegut meets Charlie Kaufman? Maybe. This mindfugging finale comes after countless side trips and flashbacks-- some of them more welcome than others--and a protagonist with five wives, two of them named Barbara, and another with practically the same name as himself: Charley, cf. Charlie.) For a time, I thought the narrator might be the writer himself, Ferris going bang-busters in an effort to outdo everyone else at authorial intrusions:
"Ordinarily, in a work of fiction, one is free to move a character around at will, to swap the cat in the window for a dog at his feet ... (to) force the feds to pull up and place him under arrest for securities fraud or (knowing his heart, his scrupulous heart) tweak the SWAT team into something more fantastical ... It is even ordinarily within my power to have hover with no advance warning, and capable of being observed by Charlie alone, a lenticular UFO over the skies of Schaumburg, beaming him up from Rust Road so that he might bow out of this mortal little game without playing by its rules, which was his private wish. But I promised the old man to tell it straight this time, to stick to the facts for once, to abide by the historical record, and to exercise the discipline imposed by real life (the "harsh truth," in Stendahl's phrase), which has always been so loathsome to us both."
Thus its revealed that the narrator isn't the author but someone known to the protagonist, namely ... well, the reader finds out soon enough.
I really like Ferris' exuberant writing style and his imagination. I liked Charlie Barnes quite a bit more than Ferris' To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Unlike the latter, I'll probably reread Charlie Barnes someday, because I enjoyed it of course, but also because I feel I may have missed a few things. (I did grasp the side trips in "Decent Hour"; it's just that I didn't care for them all that much. )
Janet Maslin, the New York Times:
"Ferris' fifth and most dazzling book, which should appeal even to those who never warmed to the other four ... Ferris’s abundant skill has been evident since his debut novel, Then We Came to the End, was published in 2007, but here he has taken a huge leap forward, twisting semi-autobiographical material in such serpentine ways that even the author’s note is devious ... This is a more tender novel than Ferris’s others, but that doesn’t keep it from being murderously funny from start to finish. He can’t help being hilarious, and this material can’t help being tough ... the book zigzags artfully through time, gradually amplifying and modifying each phase of Charlie’s life, in ways that keep it constantly surprising ... There are real people and real wounds buried in here somewhere ... Ferris’s prose remains taut and gorgeous, even when bleak ... give him props for finding precisely the right way to meld memoir with satire, to do this with bracing originality and to keep heads spinning from this novel’s first page to its last. Gamesmanship and love don’t mix easily. But Ferris has found a way to do it, and he’s risen to the top of his game."
Terrific example of a novel with an unreliable narrator. What an ending! (no spoiler from me! How does one describe this novel? Vonnegut meets Charlie Kaufman? Maybe. This mindfugging finale comes after countless side trips and flashbacks-- some of them more welcome than others--and a protagonist with five wives, two of them named Barbara, and another with practically the same name as himself: Charley, cf. Charlie.) For a time, I thought the narrator might be the writer himself, Ferris going bang-busters in an effort to outdo everyone else at authorial intrusions:
"Ordinarily, in a work of fiction, one is free to move a character around at will, to swap the cat in the window for a dog at his feet ... (to) force the feds to pull up and place him under arrest for securities fraud or (knowing his heart, his scrupulous heart) tweak the SWAT team into something more fantastical ... It is even ordinarily within my power to have hover with no advance warning, and capable of being observed by Charlie alone, a lenticular UFO over the skies of Schaumburg, beaming him up from Rust Road so that he might bow out of this mortal little game without playing by its rules, which was his private wish. But I promised the old man to tell it straight this time, to stick to the facts for once, to abide by the historical record, and to exercise the discipline imposed by real life (the "harsh truth," in Stendahl's phrase), which has always been so loathsome to us both."
Thus its revealed that the narrator isn't the author but someone known to the protagonist, namely ... well, the reader finds out soon enough.
I really like Ferris' exuberant writing style and his imagination. I liked Charlie Barnes quite a bit more than Ferris' To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Unlike the latter, I'll probably reread Charlie Barnes someday, because I enjoyed it of course, but also because I feel I may have missed a few things. (I did grasp the side trips in "Decent Hour"; it's just that I didn't care for them all that much. )
Janet Maslin, the New York Times:
"Ferris' fifth and most dazzling book, which should appeal even to those who never warmed to the other four ... Ferris’s abundant skill has been evident since his debut novel, Then We Came to the End, was published in 2007, but here he has taken a huge leap forward, twisting semi-autobiographical material in such serpentine ways that even the author’s note is devious ... This is a more tender novel than Ferris’s others, but that doesn’t keep it from being murderously funny from start to finish. He can’t help being hilarious, and this material can’t help being tough ... the book zigzags artfully through time, gradually amplifying and modifying each phase of Charlie’s life, in ways that keep it constantly surprising ... There are real people and real wounds buried in here somewhere ... Ferris’s prose remains taut and gorgeous, even when bleak ... give him props for finding precisely the right way to meld memoir with satire, to do this with bracing originality and to keep heads spinning from this novel’s first page to its last. Gamesmanship and love don’t mix easily. But Ferris has found a way to do it, and he’s risen to the top of his game."
November 12, 2023
My favorite kind of novel: an unreliable narrator, an outsider longing to be included, dropping clues that don't quite jive with the story being told, leaving you guessing until the final, heartbreaking pages. The narrator references hanging out with McEwan in the Cotswalds; "Charlie Barnes" is Ferris' comic riff on "Atonement," an author/narrator lying to the reader, rewriting history for a better ending. Ferris is of course funnier than McEwan, and the scene with the television remote, page 205, was the hardest I've laughed at a novel since the taxidermied dog Sorrow in "Hotel New Hampshire," way back in the 1980s. The final section, "The Facts," gives a lot to think about regarding "the centrality of fiction in our everyday lives" and "the power you have when you control the narrative."
April 22, 2022
A son's alternately funny and melancholic ode to his dreamy-eyed, all-too-human father. I've read two of Ferris' previous novels, and you can always count on clean prose and crisp characterizations. However, unlike those two books, I felt certain less than halfway through that I had guessed the ending. And I was right (and I'm not even good at that type of thing) so in an overall sense it was a bit predictable. But damned if it didn't knock me sideways anyway.
Ferris is a skillful and heartfelt novelist with a unique style. I was going to let this book go by if it hadn't been on the TOB longlist this past year, but I'm very glad to have given it a shot. For me it was his best yet.
Ferris is a skillful and heartfelt novelist with a unique style. I was going to let this book go by if it hadn't been on the TOB longlist this past year, but I'm very glad to have given it a shot. For me it was his best yet.
May 15, 2021
I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish it. I didn't like the style of writing. I don't have to like the characters in a book if they're at least interesting. These characters weren't.
June 2, 2022
After finding the 1st half rather enjoyable my interest was starting to flag slightly until a bit of a twist late on. I'm a sucker for that old unreliable narrator shtick
Shelved as 'dnf'
November 20, 2022This has confirmed that Ferris and I just don’t get along…
October 7, 2021
Where do I begin. The story of a father told by a son that deeply loves him. A true to life family of sorts dynamic between people you will recognize at least in essence. The vivid imagery is brought to life in a manner that causes you to question all your senses. I found myself smelling the distinguishing scents, and odors, feeling the disbelief, shock, awe and revelations of understanding. I got to know these characters in a way that brought sadness when we parted. Charlie Barnes, a man that exaggerates, greatly... or does he, well. He's an amazing father, and keeping his word at all cost. The journeys of He and his 3 children, I mean 4... sorry, have distinguishing relationships that bring to light the many failures and triumphs of Charlie Barnes. The unique manner in which I saw my own father in some, "thats a dad thing" way made smile, but made me sad at the same time.. so many three dimensionsal characters that even though you know the narrator's opinion of them, you feel justified having your own, even if different. I not only read the book. I also listened to the Audiobook, narrated by Nick Offerman. Combining the brilliance of the story itself with the unmatched talent of Offerman, I will definitely read/listen to this book again. It is too good not to. I want to find the nuggets of the story I missed along the way.
**Review appendage. May contain spoilers**
#books #joshuaferris #bookstagram #family #greatbook #nickofferman #yougottaseethis #book #bookstack #fatherhood #bittersweet #sogood #veganreader. #bookstackchallenge #books
#readingbooks 🍵📚🌻🤓
Sometimes you find a gem. A story with so many layers, and so much heart, you have to really put some thought into it before you can share your take. My previous review still holds my truth, however I have more to say. I found myself as absorbed by Jake's journey as I did Charlie’s, especially as the events played out and truths were elaborated. I found myself heartbroken when someone was excluded due to reasons beyond their control. I found myself inspired at attempts of peace making, and tolerance, even when not deserved. I found the rock solid bonds between certain individuals beautiful and honest. A bond many share with No one, yet this man was hand selected to share in this Father’s heart and life, regardless of the consequences. The amount of uphill battles defy emotional gravity to the point that, at times I wanted to scream profanities. The lack of common decency, the lack of compassion and loyalty, the complete disregard for another precious human being’s heart and place of belonging wrecked me. Maybe it was because I could relate to the narrator’s tale of an unimaginably tragic yet meaningful youth. Maybe the familiarity to strive to belong, be accepted, share love were just a little too familiar. I’m not sure, but I found the grace with which these incidents were handled remarkable and heartwarming. I’m so glad that the father's love was demonstrated with not only a power that could withstand the test of time, it withstood death and will live on forever in the energy it created. God bless this family. I know much is fiction, unfortunately I fear the parts that aren’t are the parts no child, youth or human being should ever have to endure. This book is a must read for any and all human beings trying to get through the journey of life as unscathed as possible. we all try to experience a place of contentment and belonging. Finding beauty and fulfillment sometimes requires rose-colored glasses.
**Review appendage. May contain spoilers**
#books #joshuaferris #bookstagram #family #greatbook #nickofferman #yougottaseethis #book #bookstack #fatherhood #bittersweet #sogood #veganreader. #bookstackchallenge #books
#readingbooks 🍵📚🌻🤓
Sometimes you find a gem. A story with so many layers, and so much heart, you have to really put some thought into it before you can share your take. My previous review still holds my truth, however I have more to say. I found myself as absorbed by Jake's journey as I did Charlie’s, especially as the events played out and truths were elaborated. I found myself heartbroken when someone was excluded due to reasons beyond their control. I found myself inspired at attempts of peace making, and tolerance, even when not deserved. I found the rock solid bonds between certain individuals beautiful and honest. A bond many share with No one, yet this man was hand selected to share in this Father’s heart and life, regardless of the consequences. The amount of uphill battles defy emotional gravity to the point that, at times I wanted to scream profanities. The lack of common decency, the lack of compassion and loyalty, the complete disregard for another precious human being’s heart and place of belonging wrecked me. Maybe it was because I could relate to the narrator’s tale of an unimaginably tragic yet meaningful youth. Maybe the familiarity to strive to belong, be accepted, share love were just a little too familiar. I’m not sure, but I found the grace with which these incidents were handled remarkable and heartwarming. I’m so glad that the father's love was demonstrated with not only a power that could withstand the test of time, it withstood death and will live on forever in the energy it created. God bless this family. I know much is fiction, unfortunately I fear the parts that aren’t are the parts no child, youth or human being should ever have to endure. This book is a must read for any and all human beings trying to get through the journey of life as unscathed as possible. we all try to experience a place of contentment and belonging. Finding beauty and fulfillment sometimes requires rose-colored glasses.
January 30, 2022
Rounding up 3.5. I’ve never read this author before and saw this title on some best of 2021 lists so after reading the description picked it up. It took me longer than usual to get through it, didn’t have a quick hook that drew me in. It’s got a very clever narrative, unlike any I’ve come across before. It often left me thinking, “wait, what?” It’s very wry, has well-developed characters and is very offbeat. It’s quite different from books I usually read but I’m glad to have read it. Happy to have started the new year with a book I probably wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.
February 11, 2022
I suspect this one is going to haunt me
A tragi-comedy in the vein of Atonement (making up for what could have been) or Trust Exercise (for the Great American Novel TM instead of uncomfortable adolescence) mashed up with farce - I might still be mad about the ending but I can’t ignore the heart and beautiful soul of this tale (listened to with Nick Offerman’s narration - which was perfect)
A tragi-comedy in the vein of Atonement (making up for what could have been) or Trust Exercise (for the Great American Novel TM instead of uncomfortable adolescence) mashed up with farce - I might still be mad about the ending but I can’t ignore the heart and beautiful soul of this tale (listened to with Nick Offerman’s narration - which was perfect)
October 13, 2021
This wasn’t for me. The narrative style of the protagonist really got on my nerves - not charming, not funny, just endless whining and self-pity. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
January 8, 2022
3.5 stars. Reminds me so much of the Mordecai Richler and Richard Russo books I loved in my 20s. Now that I’m older and have lived through many more decades of male centred narrative and life, I find it less funny and more irritating.
November 21, 2021
Probably my favorite read of the year. It's not for everyone, but i found it thrilling.
December 28, 2021
not for me
May 5, 2021
For some reason, during this difficult Covid year, too many books are written about death and dying. Here is another one. Though this is told through the voice of a quirky narrator l I still found the topic hard to enjoy.
His portrait of Steady Boy, the ultimate loser schlamiel, is well done, this book just didn’t hold my interest.
Thank you Netgalley for this read.
His portrait of Steady Boy, the ultimate loser schlamiel, is well done, this book just didn’t hold my interest.
Thank you Netgalley for this read.
December 31, 2022
This was such a great book!! I knew that I was going to like it from the very beginning, especially because I really appreciate the authors sense of humor. The main character and the authors writing style are both so quirky and fun. As the book moves on though you realize it’s more than just a characterization of Charlie Barnes at a turning point in his life, and really an exploration of the “power to control the narrative”. I don’t want to say much more because it’d lead to spoilers that I think make the book more powerful if they’re discovered in the book as intended.
After finishing the book, I’ve been thinking about my own two grandfathers, both flawed men who also made mistakes and hurt people in their lives. People aren’t all good, or all bad, though.. so how would their stories differ when told from their children’s perspectives vs the stories from their last wives/girlfriends (we can even call them Ruth Lefurst and Ruth Ledeux!).
After finishing the book, I’ve been thinking about my own two grandfathers, both flawed men who also made mistakes and hurt people in their lives. People aren’t all good, or all bad, though.. so how would their stories differ when told from their children’s perspectives vs the stories from their last wives/girlfriends (we can even call them Ruth Lefurst and Ruth Ledeux!).
June 24, 2024
I'm officially a Joshua Ferris fan, and this delicious mess of a family saga was not a disappointment.
November 6, 2022
“Steady boy” or is it “steady, boy?” left me feeling rather unsteady.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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