His entry begins:My favorite novel of recent months has been Joshua Ferris’s The Unnamed. The protagonist, Tim Farnsworth, is a successful New York City lawyer, who, despite the best efforts of both medical and psychiatric specialists to diagnose and treat his illness, finds himself plagued by a mysterious “disease” that strikes in intermittent phases and compels him to walk – for days, weeks, months, and eventually, years. In our GPS-obsessed world, Farnsworth walks with no destination in mind, nor does he walk for a purpose. There’s no “a-thon” attached to his walk. He walks for neither fitness nor weight loss. He walks because he has to. His addiction costs him the life of materialistic comfort he has earned, his career, his family, and ultimately any attachment to society. Regardless of this heavy price, he walks.About So Shelly, from the publisher:
Ferris’s “unnamed” disease – which, he has explained, is a fabrication of his own imagination – is...[read on]
Read an excerpt from So Shelly, and learn more about the book and author at Ty Roth's website and blog.Until now, high school junior, John Keats, has only tiptoed near the edges of the vortex that is schoolmate and literary prodigy, Gordon Byron. That is, until their mutual friend, Shelly, drowns in a sailing accident.
After stealing Shelly's ashes from her wake at Trinity Catholic High School, the boys set a course for the small Lake Erie island where Shelly's body had washed ashore and to where she wished to be returned. It would be one last "so Shelly" romantic quest. At least that's what they think. As they navigate around the obstacles and resist temptations during their odyssey, Keats and Gordon glue together the shattered pieces of Shelly's and their own pasts while attempting to make sense of her tragic and premature end.
Writers Read: Ty Roth.
--Marshal Zeringue
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