Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe?

June 15, 2019
An innocent abroad, all but kidnapped by an aunt he never knew he had, experiences his belated coming-of-age through a series of madcap European escapades. Command of narrative tone has long been a hallmark of the underheralded Clarke's (An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, 2007, etc.) fiction, and here he sustains a tightrope balance between the matter-of-fact observations of the titular protagonist and the increasingly outlandish adventures he finds himself in. It's a little late in the game for Calvin to be coming-of-age, but here he is, on the cusp of 50, divorced from a woman who won't leave him alone, living in his parents' home, recently orphaned with the death of his mother. She was the bestselling author of an inspirational book on John Calvin, whose aphorisms provide the novel's thematic underpinnings. Her only son is one of two bloggers for the international pellet-stove industry; his ex-wife is the other. They often communicate with and about each other through their chatty blogs. His life changes irrevocably when a woman he has never seen before introduces herself at his mother's funeral as the twin sister of the deceased. Without his knowledge or consent, she somehow procures for him a passport and a trans-Atlantic plane ticket, telling him, "It's never too late to grow up, Calvin." Then it's off to the races, as the plot hurtles across Europe through various manners of deceit, duplicity, mutual betrayals, stolen vehicles, stolen identities, odd nicknames with odder backstories, and climactic revelations concerning Calvin, his mother, his aunt, and his destiny. As an oracular voice intones, "In order to see...you must open your eyes," the eye-opening discoveries of the narrator provide a mind-bending experience for the reader. Unquestionably the funniest novel ever written about Calvinism.

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September 2, 2019
Clarke (The Price of a Haircut) crafts a deeply quirky narrative about a middle-aged pellet stove blogger and the wacky adventures he finds. After his mother, Nola, author of a bestselling book on theologian John Calvin, dies in an accident, Calvin Bledsoe, who spends his days writing about pellet stoves, becomes restless and isn’t quite sure what to do next.Then Calvin’s shifty yet charming aunt Beatrice surprises him with a passport and insists he accompany her on her travels, and the not-too-dynamic duo leave Maine and head to Europe. Once there, they get into inventive trouble—purchasing gerbil porn, stealing everything not nailed down, and getting kidnapped—up and down the continent, all windingly leading to the true reason that Beatrice has brought Calvin on the trip. At times the freewheeling plot veers into confusing territory, and the weird nicknames and freakishly horrible events that plague the title character go overboard. Still, Clarke keeps it all grounded with standout prose. Fans of Graham Greene’s Travels with My Aunt and John Irving’s The World According to Garp will delight in this story of a modern-day traveler. As the title character opines, “The world is remarkable, and we are grateful to be given a chance to live in it.” Agent: Elizabeth Sheinkman, Peters Fraser + Dunlop.

August 1, 2019
In a novel that manages to be joyous, melancholic, and funny, Clarke (The Price of the Haircut, 2018) introduces Calvin Bledsoe, a man named after John Calvin. His tale begins just after the unfortunate and sudden death of his mother, a famous theologian who constantly espoused Calvinist phrases and principles. At her funeral, Calvin meets his long-lost aunt, Beatrice, a wonderfully comic creation, who somehow has his passport and a ticket for him to come to Sweden. As Calvin has rarely left Maine and quietly supports himself as a blogger for the pellet-stove industry, the trip with Beatrice is a monumental event for him. Reminiscent of the comedic European travels found in Andrew Sean Greer's Less (2018), this is in many ways a coming-of-age story about a 50-year-old man. Part travelogue across Europe, part caper, part crime thriller, and full of delightfully unexpected turns, Clarke's novel mixes prodigious insight with the playful silliness that marks all of his fiction to date. This superb work displays Clarke's idiosyncratic style in all its glory.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)