March 12 will mark the one
month since I slipped, with wet shoes (it does rain in California) on smooth
concrete docking floor at work and broke my left hip. March 13 marks the day
that said hip was replaced and now nearly a month on, I finally finished A
Calling for Charlie Barnes.
While convalescing, it
occurred to me that while I have a ton of books to read, these last four weeks
have shown that once I retire (if I can retire, and don’t die of cancer), I
will need something to occupy my time. I love reading, but I now fully admit
that reading can be boring after a while. Sure I was on pain pills early on,
and sometimes that could cause a sort of brain fog that made be either sleepy
or blurred the pages, but like TV and doom-scrolling on my phone, reading
cannot be the end all of retirement, that I need a hobby outside of these four
walls.
So this book really made me wonder if having the actual time to read (I’m still off for at least another month) was really something to look forward to.
______________________
“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.”
This
book is complex, often very funny, absurd, and spot on with its family
dysfunction (a genre I appear to enjoy). Charlie is a sad-sack, but it never
seems to get him truly down and is always on the lookout for the latest scheme
to make him (rich and) respectable. So despite the multiple marriages,
bankruptcies, he does come close –the patenting of The Doolander, a
Frisbee designed to look identical to a toupee: “The World’s First Flying Haircut”
that worked.
The book does fall into the category
of an unreliable writer, as Ferris does appear to make the reader work on guessing
just what is fact or fiction (in a fictional biographical novel, I guess) about
Charlie’s life and his relationships with his children and ex-wives or who is writing it. I did
appreciate the location the book is set in, which is Schaumburg, Illinois, the
next village over from where I grew up. It was fun to have characters drive on
roads I know and visit Woodfield Mall (an icon of a place I went often and
worked in as well).
I’ve read only one previous book by Ferris, Then We Came To The End, itself a cleverly written tale about the dot.com bubble bursting, so I knew the storyline was going to be a bit out there, and as I said, I did find myself chuckling, but I was left scratching my head here, pondering what did I just read?
It’s a
slow-burning tale, with a rather surprising twist ending. I’m not sure if it’s
ambitious, but it does make for an interesting ending that one might never had
guessed at.
No comments:
Post a Comment