Calling For Charlie Barnes

From the Booker-shortlisted author comes a poignant novel about fathers, sons and the embers of the American dream

Charlie Barnes is a mid-century man devoted to his newspaper and his landline. But Charlie is about to get dragged into our troubled age by his storyteller son, who has a different idea of him than he has of himself. Then there are his other children, his ex-wives, present wife, business clients, friends and acquaintances, all of whom have their competing opinions of Charlie.

A striver, romantic, and thoroughgoing capitalist, he's blindsided by the Great Recession and a dose of bad news. Rethinking his entire life, he starts to wonder- what makes a man real? What makes him good? And how does the story we tell about ourselves line up with the lives that we actually live?

Ideal for readers interested in general fiction.