Minneapolis writer Charles Baxter’s ‘Blood Test’ uses humor to get to the bottom of one family’s issues

Charles Baxter’s new novel, “Blood Test,” is billed as a comedy, and it is a comedy mostly in that it is not a tragedy. Is it funny? Yes, but darkly so; its humor, which is delightful, is wrapped around truths and drama and so, while we laugh, we also feel a shot of anxiety. It is a wonderfully crafted book, more complicated than it first might seem.

The story deals with serious universal topics — love, revenge, power, envy and grief — as well as contemporary American problems — our deteriorating health care system, gun control (or lack thereof), internet scammers, gay rights.

The narrator is divorced insurance salesman Brock Hobson, a beige, boring man, so ordinary that people keep forgetting his name. His wife, Cheryl, left him primarily because he is those things. Their two children live with Brock: a 17-year-old daughter named Lena, who spends most of her time in her bedroom with her boyfriend, and a 15-year-old son named Joe, who is gay.

Cheryl lives with a hunky bodybuilder, a stupid man who calls Joe homophobic names. Cheryl took up with him because “she got bored with me, got bored with domestic life,” Brock muses. “Boredom: that American problem.”

The story is set in motion when Brock agrees to take an expensive blood test that will predict his future behavior. It’s a crazy thing to do, especially for Brock, a man who is, as his daughter says, “as predictable as a metronome.” But hey, why not? Real scientists from Cambridge, Mass., have come up with this test, the machines are made in Germany, and the employees attended Yale. What could possibly go wrong?

The results, when they come back, are startling: This mild-mannered guy whose most aggressive tendency is correcting people’s grammar, is almost certain to commit a serious crime soon. A felony, he’s told. “Maybe not electric chair-worthy criminality,” the scientist says, “but felonies are definitely in your future.”

The humor in the book — and there is plenty, including a nod to slapstick involving a banana peel — comes from the absurdity of the situation and from the narrator’s droll asides. The story itself, though, is plenty fraught, as Brock takes these predictions more and more seriously, and the reader is sucked in, too. As the book progresses, the stakes grow higher and the likelihood of a crime grows more possible. Yes, it’s absurd — but holy moly, is Brock really going to kill someone? And what is he doing with that gun?

There are fleeting moments of great beauty, as when the narrator’s girlfriend Trey gets nuthatches and deer to eat from her hand in the middle of the woods. “There is another world and it’s here, now,” Brock muses during a dark time. “Wild animals can bring you evidence of that.” And as in his last novel, “The Sun Collective,” Baxter introduces a wild and loquacious unhoused person who imparts both wisdom and nonsense.

At its heart, though, “Blood Test” is a novel about family — the way they love each other and protect each other and look out for each other. It’s clear on every page how much Brock loves his randy daughter and anxious son. If he kills anyone, the reader understands, it’ll be for them.

Laurie Hertzel also reviews for the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. She lives in St. Paul.

Blood Test

By: Charles Baxter.

Publisher: Pantheon, 224 pages, $28.

Event: 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, Twin Cities Book Festival, Spaces, 1330 Lagoon Av., #400, Mpls. $40. 6 p.m. Oct. 23, Next Chapter, 38 Snelling Av. S., St. Paul. Free.