The Fortunate Ones

The Fortunate Ones was a delight to read with its dark fairytale feel, and I felt myself diving into a complex world. In the story we are provided with Tarkington’s acute understanding and keen observational insights of what it is to be human, the complex nature of family and the dysfunctional dynamics of a broken home.

When Charlie Boykin was young, he thought his life with his single mother on the working-class side of Nashville was perfectly fine. But when his mother arranges for him to be admitted as a scholarship student to an elite private school, he is suddenly introduced to what the world can feel like to someone cushioned by money. That world, he discovers, is an almost irresistible place where one can bend—and break—rules and still end up untarnished. As he gets drawn into a friendship with a charismatic upperclassman, Archer Creigh, his twin, Vanessa, and an affluent family that treats him like an adopted son, Charlie quickly adapts to life in the upper echelons of Nashville society. Under their charming and alcohol-soaked spell, how can he not relax and enjoy it all—the lack of anxiety over money, the easy summers spent poolside at perfectly appointed mansions, the lavish parties, the freedom to make mistakes knowing that everything can be glossed over or fixed?

But over time, Charlie is increasingly pulled into covering for Archer’s constant deceits and his casual bigotry. At what point will the attraction of wealth and prestige wear off enough for Charlie to take a stand—and will he?

This story is a character driven plot and very much a character study. The reader will follow Charlie’s life and how he grows and changes based on his new life among the wealthy and privileged in Belle Meade, TN. His new surroundings have seduced him along with his new friends, and as he grows up he begins to see his new world as a world of corruption and his perceptions begin to change.

This story is in so many ways is also about the past, the past that Charlie can’t let go of, and the past that shapes who the characters become as adults. It’s also about love and sacrifice as each character finds themselves sacrificing and giving up parts of their lives for Archer to make sure he finds success. I was so emotionally connected to each character, and I liked their complex relationships. It was at times heartbreaking to see how deep seated these wounds of the past and how chained to the present Charlie, Vanessa and Archer are.

The Fortunate Ones is a compulsive novel of friendship, family, sibling relationships, secrets, memories that can so often turn out to be unreliable, coming to terms with what life can throw at you, grief, loss, love and forgiveness. It is beautifully written, with rich, atmospheric vibrant descriptions and with skillful characterization and development. Tarkington has an uncanny capacity to give the reader pictures of emotional and meaningful depth of Charlie’s interior life. This is a brilliant, thought provoking, multilayered, complicated and well crafted book infused with a wisdom and realism that made it such a memorable read. If you are a fan of The Dutch House or The Great Gatsby than this book is for you!

Thank you Algonquin Books for this gifted advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.