The Unnamed Lib/E

Joshua Ferris' debut novel Then We Came to the End was both heralded by critics and a New York Times best seller, and it marked the arrival of a startlingly talented young writer. With The Unnamed, Ferris imagines the collision between one man's free will and the forces of nature that are bigger than any of us. Tim Farnsworth walks. He walks out of meetings and out of bed. He walks in sweltering heat and numbing cold. He will walk without stopping until he falls asleep, wherever he is. This curious affliction has baffled medical experts around the globe-and comes perilously close to ruining what should be a happy life. Tim has a loving family, a successful law career, and a beautiful suburban home, all of which he maintains spectacularly well until his feet start moving again. What drives a man to stay in a marriage? In a job? What forces him away? Is love or conscience enough to overcome the darker, stronger urges of the natural world? The Unnamed is a deeply felt, luminous novel about modern life, ancient yearnings, and the power of human understanding.

About the Author :
Joshua Ferris is the bestselling author of several novels, including Then We Came to the End, The Unnamed, and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and the PEN/Hemingway Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize, and he was named one of the New Yorker's 20 Under 40 writers in 2010.r He received a BA in English and philosophy from the University of Iowa and an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. His fiction has appeared in the Iowa Review, Best New American Voices 2005, and Prairie Schooner.

Review :
An unnerving portrait of a man stripped of civilization's defenses. Ferris' prose is brash, extravagant, and, near the end, chillingly beautiful. -- "New Yorker" At once riveting, horrifying, and deeply sad, The Unnamed, like Tim's feet, moves with a propulsion all its own. This is fiction with the force of an avalanche, snowballing unstoppable until it finally comes to rest. -- "San Francisco Chronicle" Dark and utterly compelling...With his devastating metaphoric take on the yearning for connection and the struggles of commitment, Ferris brilliantly channels the suburban angst of Yates and Cheever for the new millenium. -- "Booklist (starred review)" Ferris is wise enough not to teach a lesson. Rather, he has teased ordinary circumstances into something extraordinary, which is exactly what we want our fiction writers to do. -- "Economist (London) " Ferris puts his notable wit and observational ability aside in favor of a far more psychological (and ultimately physical) examination of the self...An accomplished and daring work by a writer just now realizing what he is capable of creating. -- "Los Angeles Times" Ferris shows a talent for the grotesque in his riveting descriptions of Tim's decline. He also includes his specialty-scenes of juicy office intrigue. But what's most engrossing in his portrait of a couple locked in an extreme version of a familiar conflict-the desire to stay together versus an inexplicable yearning to walk away. -- "O, The Oprah Magazine" Remarkable...Ferris manages to inject a bizarre whimsy into a devastatingly sad story, with each of Tim's outings revealing a new aspect of his marriage. The novel's circular aspects...integrate Ferris' themes of family, sickness, and the uncertain division between body and mind into a vastly satisfying and original book. -- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)" You can't break away from the grip of these opening chapters...Ferris usually writes in a steady, cool voice whether delivering the quotidian details of office work or existential observations about God that would otherwise sound grandiose. The effect is a terrifying portrayal of intermittent mental illness, the way the fear of relapse becomes a kind of specter, mocking each recovery and shredding any hope of a cure. -- "Washington Post"