The families of Nashville's Belle Meade Boulevard may be fortunate, but as the characters in Ed Tarkington's moving second novel (after Only Love Can Break Your Heart) reveal, money does not buy happiness.
In the prologue of The Fortunate Ones, army officer Charlie Boykin is comforting the family of an Iraq war casualty when a TV bulletin announces the suicide of Tennessee Senator Archer Creigh, and Charlie suddenly dissolves in tears. The novel explores the ties between the two men--Charlie from a poor background and Archer to the manor born--leading to this moment of grief.
A struggling waitress, single mom Bonnie Boykin arranges a scholarship to Yeatman, "a rich white boys school," according to 13-year-old Charlie's friends. "Big brother" Archer Creigh introduces Charlie to the world of Belle Meade and Southern graciousness. Bonnie is welcomed as well, with far-reaching effects. Charlie has misgivings; he leaves a funeral for a Black friend's grandmother in his old neighborhood to get to a party "surrounded by Confederate flags in a field of drunken white college students." He's seduced by "the bright and beautiful world," but, facing secrets that reveal a darker story, after Yeatman he flees Nashville.
Years later, Archer entreats him to join his campaign. Observing Archer the candidate and his wife, Charlie's old flame, he notes, "I, looking on from afar, their erstwhile friend and confidant, admire them with both ardor and spite."
Through his first-person narration, readers come to a deeper understanding of Charlie's flawed yet noble character, as he struggles with the conflict between privilege and idealism. --Cheryl McKeon, bookseller, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.