Calling for Charlie Barnes

This clever novel starts out masquerading as pure comedy, before morphing into a more serious drama about an unusually fractured family. The narrator is Jake Barnes, who has his own particular origin story that the reader learns about in careful installments. Then, towards the end, Jake the writer looks upon what he has written, and the story becomes the story of the story of Charles Barnes, a metastory.

Let me back up, though. Charles Barnes has been married multiple times, tried on many lives, involving some hilarious get-rich-quick schemes. However, poor Chuck’s general direction, financially, is downward, owing to the funny, delusional choices he makes. At the age of sixty-eight, he has four children, with whom he has complicated relationships, owing to divorcing their mothers and finally settling down with a woman none of them like. Oh, I should mention that these wives have Dickensian last names. That’s a nice touch.

The important, poignant thing about this story is the love and gratitude Jake has for Charles Barnes, a man who feels like a failure. Charles has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer before finding his calling, without doing what he set out to do. So, Jake attempts to breathe new life into his story, and gives him a better ending. However, this does not go as well as Jake would’ve liked, and that’s when he enlightens us about how he has controlled the narrative. The reader gets to peek behind the scenes, and it’s an unusual experience.

Joshua Ferris’s writing is smart and engaging. This is the first of his novels I’ve read, and I was impressed. I would definitely recommend this, and will happily read his work again.

Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for this opportunity.