Comic absurdity walks a floss-thin tightrope. A narrative of wacky situations can have us laughing helplessly, but only if the absurdity conveys a certain respect for the reader's intelligence. A comic step too far can feel mocking, and a mocked reader can easily delete an author's name from their mental (or online) "to read" queue.
By the time Brock Clarke risks that step, you're mere pages from the end, and given the comic absurdities he's traversed with impeccable balance — to the point where you wonder how in the world he's going to wrap this up — you grant him some leeway.
In short, "Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe?" is a head-shaking delight. That's really all the review it needs.
Of course there's more to say, but it's less about the novel than about its process.
But first, the plot: Calvin Bledsoe was named after John Calvin, a Protestant theologian in the 1500s. His mother, Nora, herself a theologian, wrote a world-renowned treatise on the Christian reformer, and her devotion to him, as well as to her fame, is consuming.
Now 49, Calvin has led a far less remarkable life in his mother's home, although his current job as a blogger for the pellet stove industry is proving oddly satisfying. Still, he wishes that the legion of pellet stove fans would sometimes, even once, leave a comment.
When Nora dies in a train collision so fiery that she is incinerated with no trace, Calvin is truly alone — until an unknown aunt appears at the funeral. Telling Calvin, "It's time to grow up," she more or less kidnaps him to Switzerland, where events unfold with comic and often criminal absurdity, frequently with quotations from John Calvin serving to illuminate the chaos.
Certain books, at certain points, inspire the question: How did the author come up with this stuff?
