Details

ISBN-10: 0316333549
ISBN-13: 9780316333542
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Publish Date: 06/07/2022
Dimensions: 8.20" L, 5.40" W, 1.00" H

A Calling for Charlie Barnes

Paperback

Price: $17.99

Overview

Named a best book of the year by NPR, Vogue, and the New York Times Book Review, the hilarious and profound new novel from National Book Award finalist Joshua Ferris is “a fine American novel about family, love, and a decent but flawed man trying to be better” (Stephen King).

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.

“A masterpiece that shines a revealing light on both family and fiction itself.” –Michael Schaub, NPR

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Reviews
"Dazzling...There's no shortage of make-believe in A Calling for Charlie Barnes, Ferris' fifth, and best, book. A Calling for Charlie Barnes wears its metafictional heart on its sleeve, but as smart as it is, Ferris never shows any signs of falling in love with his own cleverness. Literary experiments without warmth tend to fall flat for most readers, but Ferris' novel is – remarkably, given its flawed subject – full of heart...In his previous works, Ferris has proved that he's one of the best American authors of comic fiction working today. His humor is on full display with A Calling for Charlie Barnes, but so are his intelligence and compassion; it's a masterpiece that shines a revealing light on both family and fiction itself."
Michael Schaub, NPR
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Details

ISBN-10: 0316333549
ISBN-13: 9780316333542
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Publish Date: 06/07/2022
Dimensions: 8.20" L, 5.40" W, 1.00" H
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