The Fortunate Ones by Ed Tarkington

The Fortunate Ones by Ed Tarkington

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781616206802

Hardcover, $26.95, 308 pages

Ed Tarkington's novel The Fortunate Ones opens with Charlie Boykin fulfilling his duty as a casualty notifications officer at Fort Campbell, on his way to break the news to a family that their son had died in service to his country.

While there, he sees on the family television that popular Southern Republican Senator Arch Creigh had committed suicide. Charlie is stunned by this news, and the story moves to how a young Charlie, son to a single teenage mother living in the working class section of Nashville, ended up best friends with Arch, the golden boy of Nashville.

Young Charlie was routinely beaten up after school, being the smallest of the few white students at his school. His mom managed to get him a scholarship to the elite prep school, where all of the privileged scions are educated. 

 

Charlie meets Arch Creigh, who takes Charlie under his wing and introduces him to his best friend Jamie Haltom and Jamie's twin sister Vanessa. Charlie is entranced by Vanessa, but she and Arch have a relationship. Charlie becomes involved in the lives of these three, spending all of his free time with them, and leaving his lifelong best friend Terrence behind back home.

 Charlie becomes seduced  and captivated by the lifestyle of his new friends and their parents. Arch's father died when Arch was young, so Jamie's dad became a surrogate father to him, a role he seemed willing to assume in Charlie's life as well. Jamie's mother drinks heavily.

When Charlie's mom is offered a position as Jamie's mother's personal assistant, he and his mom move into a guest house on the Halstom property. Things are going well for Charlie and his mom, they have moved up in the world.

Secrets and lies abound, and the moral of the story is told by Charlie on the day of his fateful interview at his new school-"If not for that day, I would have never have left East Nashville for Belle Meade, nor would I have understood how much the conditions of life in one world depends on the whims of those who live in another."

The Fortunate Ones is called "a Southern Gatsby", and that is an apt comparison. Much like Charlie is entranced by his new life, Ed Tarkington entrances the reader by bringing us into this world of wealth and privilege, filled with interesting and flawed people. I felt like I was dropped in this Nashville scene. Fans who are missing the writing of Pat Conroy have found a worthy successor. I recommend this one.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Ed Tarkington's tour.