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We need to get you prepared for some themes in our double feature Virtual Book Club on Friday 17 September 2021 at 7:30pm Central Time, and Ed Tarkington is a good segway to that. We will be discussing Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, register at the link here, and be prepared for an emotionally heavy discussion and all the spoilers.

Ed Tarkington has published two novels, 2016’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart and today’s title, 2021’s The Fortunate Ones and has also written for such publications as the Nashville Scene, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Knoxville News-Sentinel, and Lit Hub. He regularly contributes to chapter16.org, the internet home for all things literary in Tennessee which is sponsored by Humanities Tennessee. Tarkington has three degrees from three different Southern universities, is a native of Central Virginia, and something that will probably not come as a surprise, lives and writes from Nashville, Tennessee. 

Knox McCoy greenlit The Fortunate Ones just days after its January 5th publication date. He has this to say about it on the brand-spanking and shiny new knoxandjamie.com: 

It’s about a Nashville private school and the liberating but corrosive effect of money. For those who loved A Secret History and/or A Separate Peace.

All that Knox says is true, but it is so, so much more. I wish I had been able to get the book digitally instead of dead-tree through Interlibrary Loan. (For those of you unfamiliar with the interlibrary loan program, your library can get books from other branches of the same library system, and if you’re at a research or university library, you can have access to SO MANY MORE libraries. All for free. It’s an amazing thing, the sharing of knowledge, even before the interwebz!) I would have highlighted so many passages in preparation for this book review, but, I will just have to depend upon my, oftentimes,shoddy memory.  Not as shoddy as Nikki’s usual situations, or even the shoddy memories that are created by the alcohol-induced haze that permeates Yeatman Academy, the all-boys preparatory school that serves as a setting and the glue that holds our characters together for the majority of the book. Knox admits in Episode 385 of The Popcast that for personal reasons the book really resonated with him – because he attended an all-boys preparatory school down the street from the university Nikki and I attended, albeit a couple years before our living in the ‘Noog. 

I want to focus on what has left a lasting impression on me as a reader who was raised and lives as an adult in Nashville. This book reads as both a love letter and scathing expose on the city that I call home. The interview in the Nashville Scene that Tarkington gave on The Fortunate Ones is truly worth a read if you’ve read or are thinking about reading this novel. [Nikki here: Do not sleep on this interview!] If you are as intimately familiar with Nashville and the changes that have occurred since the late 1980’s to late 2000’s, you will not be surprised at any of the happenings or attitudes of the characters that inhabit Tarkington’s Nashville. I, like Knox, thought more pages would have been wonderful because Tarkington’s writing style is so readable; it’s easy like drinking water. I felt transported to all the Nashville neighborhoods he describes. I have examples of people who could be the characters that inhabit those neighborhoods living in my head.

The Fortunate Ones contains themes of class, race, politics, sexuality, and love. That last one, it’s more than romantic love, it’s the love of friends and family, and how people can fall in and out of your life but you still feel connected to them in your memory as if time had not passed. Just like it is when you come home, to a place or to family. Bonus, there’s a Jeep. And, you’re welcome for that spoiler. #notreallyaspoiler. I’m giving The Fortunate Ones a thrilled five star review. Two of those in a month?! Yeah, and I’m not remotely sorry.

~Ashley

Oh readers, The Fortunate Ones by Ed Tarkington had me from the start.  Knox said to read a book about a character who goes on scholarship to an all boys’ school – I’m in.  Then it’s set in Nashville – I’m in, and I’m ready to rip it to shreds (we’ll circle back to this).  AND THEN it has a cover that reminds me of the trilogy that inspired Heart.Wants.Books – yes blog, book club, and all – and I’m demanding Ashley join me.  Granted none of this was a hard sell, but I was beyond excited when this came up in the reading list and it only disappointed me on one front, which was actually a gift!

The part where I wanted to rip this book to shreds.  Y’all, I have feelings about my city.  We’ve talked about this before, and how I grew up going to visit my great-grandmother, who still lived in the house my grandmother grew up in until the late 90s and I remember how her neighborhood was in the late 1980s, the same neighborhood Charlie lives in and goes to school in at the beginning of The Fortunate Ones.  And I also remember how it started to become gentrified during her last years there, and I remember it as Charlie describes it later in the book too.  Yes, it’s even more different today.  

Let’s talk about another aspect of my city.  Charlie describes his movements around the city, even turning “off West End, onto the Boulevard” at one point.  Well, I worked on West End for almost four years, and now if the interstate is bad I turn off Harding (which is actually the same street as West End but the name changes several times, including well before this) and onto Belle Meade Boulevard – or Charlie’s “the” boulevard.  That’s it.  That’s my third generation Nashvillian complaint about how Tarkington portrays Nashville.  He didn’t reflect the name change in the road.  Ashley can tell you I get offended if an author sets a book in Nashville and I can’t follow them around in my head (I’m thinking of one – set anywhere else I’d have enjoyed it SO much more), so this is really a gold star from me because I do expect perfection!  Tarkington also includes tornadoes that happened in the late 1990s, and I made notes questioning the real life politicians that inspired the fictional politicians.  I was, and still am, VERY impressed!  

How does Tarkington know Nashville so well?  He lives here, naturally.  Lives, writes, parents, teaches English, coaches wrestling, and advises the literary magazine of the only all boys private school in Nashville, and has for well over a decade.  Yes friends, he might very well be a character in this book, and I’d love to know if the other teachers are based on real people he’s worked with, because I totally got Lisa Donovan vibes from the art teacher, even though Lisa taught at a different private school.  (I will note, there are two all boys private schools mentioned in this book – the one Tarkington teaches at in real life and the one Charlie attends.  This is literary license and allowed because he can’t exactly set this story at his day job.)

Beyond Tarkington’s research, experience, and attention to detail, The Fortunate Ones is a layered story of how society changes, yet stays the same, how race separates us, and how power and money can blind some while they are tools to others, and that really we should all be searching for happiness and belonging in our lives.  Tarkington and his book have a lot to say on these topics and more, and do it beautifully while weaving in familiar (to me) places, events, and politics in Nashville and in our country as he explores these themes.  Does this book reek of privilege?  Yes, truly it does, but it doesn’t glorify it, instead it turns it on its head, and examines it from all sides, exposing the ugly truths hidden behind the lush lawns and gorgeous facades that make up the landscape on the Boulevard, even the facades that have been taken back to the studs or completely raised, because that happens on the Boulevard in real life too.  

I’m very much looking forward to reading more from Tarkington because his writing style is purposeful and easy, it’s engaging without being fussy.  He tackled some challenging topics in a complex landscape with amazing writing, so, I’m giving The Fortunate Ones 4.5 stars, rounding up to 5.  If our second double 5 star review in a row doesn’t convince you that Knox and Jamie know a thing or two about green light books, all I can say is we’ll see what happens next week.  It’s looking promising so far!

What’s a pet peeve you have in books that can make or break an experience for you?

~Nikki 

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