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BLIND SPEED: A Novel
By Josh Barkan
Blind Speed
by Josh Barkan
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No one should be allowed to read Josh Barkan’s
Blind Speed: A Novel unless they are certified as having a mordant and somewhat
raucous sense of humor. Feckless protagonist Paul Berger, a failed musician,
was born “a little bit ugly.” Like Al Capp’s
character Joe BTZFLK, who had his own personal storm cloud that traveled with
him, Paul was born to lose. In Paul’s case, the storm cloud is represented by
an ominous prophecy concerning his life and fortune as foretold by an
Blind Speed is a risky novel in its form and structure. It is nonlinear
in that the author deftly uses a series of flashbacks to flesh out the story.
It is also metafictional, reminiscent at times of the
work of John Barth of Giles Goat Boy and The Sot Weed
Factor fame. There is a fine balance between word play and postmodern
self-consciousness and the page turner characteristics of more traditional
genres. One finds, for instance the insertion of expository material along the
way. In the “Coda” following chapter 3, author departs from the fictive
narrative as follows:
“Two other things I found while researching this chapter:
The limestone of the Pentagon all comes from the same quarry in
One of the conflicts that drive the narrative to its satisfying
conclusion is the rivalry between Paul and his two alpha male brothers. Andrew
was an astronaut who died on
Paul, suffering from writers block for over six years, is unable to
finish the novel on which he has written a mere 45 pages. Because of his
failure to publish the novel or even a brief journal article, he is one the
verge of losing his job as an instructor in a community college when the tenure
committee meets. He is told by the department chairman, Kominski, that he must
publish something in the next two months to be considered for continued
employment. In a fit of self-abnegation as he left Kominski’s
office, he characterizes himself as an “idiot,” a nincompoop, and worse. His mindset is
permeated by such a sense of failure and lostness
that he brings to mind Norwegian Expressionist Edvard
Munch’s “The Scream.”
In his chronic despair, he makes the following observation at a “BATTLE
REENACTMENT OF THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD” in
Nixon, that goofy Vietnam War mortician was right: the
silent majority ruled (not the rebellious, pacifist fringe); the majority
killed for their property; and there was nothing really revolutionary about the
Minutemen, who won a war and took over an entire country to build fast-food
restaurants and Disneyland while abolitionists, pacifists, hippies, and
environmentalists were left to make well-intended flatulent noises—write poems such as Ginsberg’s
“Howl”—in books for other defeated noisemakers.
Paul’s angst is not
simply directed at politicos of one persuasion; Hillary Clinton come for her
share of vituperation later; “liberals like the...porker Hillary Clinton, who
was just a fascist commie pig….” He inveighs against whoever and whatever is at
hand; hippies, his attorney brother. The world, in short, is too much with him.
Paul’s fiancée Zoe was shot at the
One nearly finds
redemption for Paul at the moment of his wedding to Zoe.
“He hadn’t expected to see her so much more beautiful than he usually regarded
her…he felt, perhaps for the first time, beautiful himself as he stood next to her.” His wedding
to Zoe, however, like much else in Paul’s
life, it took a decidedly atypical and unpleasant turn even before the ceremony
was over. Then it got worse.
The novel includes
pitch perfect descriptions of Boston area neighborhoods: “He wandered first
through the Chinatown gate, gilded with yellow paint that was supposed to look
like gold and bring good fortune to every poor Joe who passed between the
concrete pillars, and then into the herbal medicine store, and then into the
store where he was offered but declined a massage….”
Paul’s saga continues, his life lurching from one disaster to another,
yet taking a surprising turn when he must deal with “ecoterrorists”
and his brother’s vaulting ambition.
The narrative of Blind Speed is at times piercingly satirical, but the
author builds in the ironies and insights that make it all worthwhile. And in
the denouement, the reader is left with the belief that Paul found grace and
redemption in an unexpected and appealing way; a way, in short, to be in this
world.
A rising star among writers, Barkan
was awarded a fellowship in literature by the National Endowment for the Arts
in literature in 2006. He has taught writing courses and
Full disclosure: I first met Josh Barkan at
BLIND SPEED: A Novel
Josh Barkan
TriQuarterly Books of Northwestern University
Press
ISBN: 9780810124936
Hardcover, 304 pages
$24.95
With appreciation to
first publisher The Harvard Square Commentary
The
Chickasaw
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