The Fortunate Ones

The Fortunate Ones by Ed Tarkington

Fiction

2021 Workman Audio

Narrated by MacLeod Andrews

Finished on February 21, 2022

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

When Charlie Boykin was young, he’d thought his life with his single mother was really just fine. But when his mother’s connections get Charlie into boarding school and give them access to the upper echelons of Nashville society, Charlie falls under the spell of all that a life among the wealthy can mean. Increasingly attached to another boy, Arch Creigh, Charlie learns how morality has little to do with life in Belle Meade. On into college and after, Charlie aids Arch in his pursuit of a Senate seat, only to be pulled into a growing web of deceit. The novel examines the questions: Why do the poor love the rich? Why do we envy and worship a class of people that so often exhibits the worst excesses and the lowest morals?

For fans of Ann Patchett's Commonwealth and Kevin Wilson's Nothing to See Here, The Fortunate Ones is an engrossing story of class, love, and loyalty.

Every January as I look back on my yearly stats, I notice that I read books written primarily by women. And yet, many of my favorite novels (A Gentleman in Moscow, All the Light We Cannot See, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, The Heart's Invisible Furies, and The Stand, to name just a few) were written by men. So when JoAnn (Gulfside Musings) wrote about The Fortunate Ones, I was curious and added it to my TBR list. I was not disappointed! The audio is captivating and MacLeod Andrews' performance is well done, although his voice for one of the young female characters was completely wrong. (She sounded more like a six-year-old instead of a child in 5th grade.) I agree with JoAnn's comparison to Pat Conroy's novels; this Southern family saga is filled with secrets, loyalties, class and privilege (not to mention flawed characters), which bring to mind Conroy's Beach Music (although Tarkington's prose lacks Conroy's exquisite lyricism). I love the sense of place depicted in Southern fiction and Tarkington's novel doesn't disappoint. I enjoyed the Nashville setting, and many of the surrounding communities mentioned are near my daughter and son-in-law's home in Franklin, Tennessee. 

By the way, I thought it interesting that there are at least four books with this exact title. Ellen Umansky wrote a historical novel about the Holocaust, which I read in 2017.

Thanks for the recommendation, JoAnn! Now on to get a copy of Tarkington's earlier novel, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, another coming-of-age story which has garnered high praise.  

I received a complimentary copy from Libro.fm. All thoughts and opinions are my own.