The Unnamed, for all of me, might have gone unpublished. I had Joshua Ferris’s first book, And Then We Came To The End, on my little list, but after looking it up, decided it didn’t look so interesting and went with this one instead. I don’t know if it was a mistake to eschew the first for the second, but it was a mistake to open this one.

The premise is that a hotshot lawyer develops an undiagnosable/untreatable compulsion to walk. The urge might overtake him at any moment–in court, at home, wherever. And when he’s got to go he’s got to go.

Eventually, he loses track of time, location, identity, then wakes up and calls his wife to come get him. Sometimes he goes for months or years at a time without an episode. Then he’ll have several in a short span. Kind of hard to maintain your life. Anyhow, he has a long-suffering wife and a snotty daughter, neither of which is all that likable. And he’s not so likable himself, so it’s pretty hard to pull for him, so I stopped halfway through.

I guess he’s garnered some critical acclaim, and I harbor him no ill-will, but Joshua Ferris is not my guy.

Ta-ta