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.

Friday 5ive- Happy New Year

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention during the week. I think we are all happy to say goodbye to 2020 and look forward to a better year in 2021. 

1) While picking up a few stocking stuffers in my neighborhood Anthropologie store, I found this cute display of spatulas dipped in "frosting" and sprinkles hanging over a holiday display table. They always have such creative displays.

2)  I saw Alan Alda on Good Morning America talking about a new podcast on Audible called Soldiers of Science. It describes how some of the best doctors ended up at the National Institutes of Health. During the Vietnam War, graduates of medical school did not enter the draft lottery, but were automatically drafted. The only option to avoid that was to apply to a program at the NIH. The result was that the NIH got some of the best and brightest doctors to work in research, including Dr. Anthony Fauci. It's four-part series and it's fascinating. I listened to it in two sittings. You can get more information here.

3)  We did two more virtual wine tastings, one with Clos du Val winery in Napa with friends, and a large Zoom one with my husband's family with wines from Del Dotto Winery in Napa. They both were so interesting, we learned about the various regions and how having vineyards a few miles apart can make a difference in the taste of the wines. For the family one we each did a charcuterie board to go with the wines. It's a great way to reconnect with family. 

4)  I finally watched season four of The Crown. It was excellent, and I particularly enjoyed Olivia Coleman (Queen Elizabeth) and Gillian Anderson (Margaret Thatcher) in their scenes together. 

I'm still on my quest to watch as many holiday specials/movies as I can, and this week it was The Happiest Season on Hulu. Kristen Stewart (Abby) and Mackenzie Davis (Harper) are a happy couple until Harper brings Abby home to meet her family at Christmas, and she hasn't told her family that she and Abby are more than friends. Harper's father (Victor Garber) is running for mayor of their town, and all three of his daughters (and wife played by Mary Steenburgen) are very high strung, with some hiding secrets from their parents. I enjoyed Daniel Levy as Abby's friend and Aubrey Plaza as a former high school girlfriend of Harper's. It was not exactly a happy-all-the-time-movie, but it does have a satisfying ending.

5)  I was busy with the holiday, so I only read three books over the last two weeks. I read my Book Of The Month November selection, Lori Nelson Spielman's The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany, about two cousins who accompany their elderly great-aunt back to Tuscany to reunite her with her long-lost love and break a family curse that says that the second daughters in each family are doomed to remain unmarried. It was nice to visit Tuscany in a book since we couldn't do it in person.

We've been watching the Showtime limited series Your Honor, and Jon Sealy's new novel The Merciful treads similiar territory. A young woman is killed in a hit-and-run while riding her bike at night in her small town in South Carolina, and the man who killed her claims he thought he hit a deer. We get the stories of the prosecutor, defense attorney, the man who killed her and his wife, the dead woman's boyfriend and more, and how one bad decision can change the trajectory of your entire life. My full review publishes next week. 

Ed Tarkington's novel, The Fortunate Ones, is also set in the South, Nashville this time. Charlie Boykin, born to a single teenage mom who lives in the working class part of town in Nashville, gets the chance to attend an elite private school where he becomes friends with golden boy Arch Creigh, and twins Jamie and Vanessa. As Charlie gets pulled into their rarefied circle, he finds that things are different than they appear. It's a terrific story, and Ed Tarkington is well on his way to becoming a great addition to the Southern canon of writers. It's been billed as "the Southern Great Gatsby" and that is an apt comparison. My full review publishes next week.

I hope you all have a safe, happy, healthy New Year. Continue to remain socially distant, wash your hands, wear a mask, and get the vaccine when and if it's appropriate for you.