New Book Review: Charlie Utopia

Title: Charlie Utopia 

Author: Nowick Gray

Date: 2022

Publisher: Cougar

Length: 363 pages

ISBN: 9781990129230

Quote: "He had even plotted the end of his autobiography, envisioning life after fifty as icing on the cake."

Why read this novel? It's funny in a dry way, but not too funny to read in public. It's sad in a dry way, too, but not so sad as to be depressing. Mainly it's nostalgic. Charlie Utopia is a baby-boomer who lives in his utopian dreams, brings them into life in most ways--he succeeds at all the different things he wants to do as fun jobs, doesn't have to give much time to jobs taken just to pay bills, builds his own house, travels with a band, gets into all the beds he seems really to want to get into. Yet he's always just slightly depressed, because for all the self-help books he reads and all the trendy roads to happiness he follows, something eludes him.

And what that something is, is Love. Charlie's always loved himself and arranged for his own comfort. He's a decent man, and his own comfort includes doing honest work well, being a satisfactory bedmate, and providing for his one positively known child. But his good will fails to extend beyond the end of his own nose. He seems to keep track of the names of the women he's married or lived with, but beyond their different demographic profiles he's aware of very little about them, so it's hard for the reader to remember which fits into which part of his story (and that plus the philosophical fads are often the only indication of what year it's supposed to be, from scene to scene). He doesn't abuse his daughter, but he seems to know nothing about her except as baggage that comes with one of the women he's given pleasure yet failed to know. People always drift away from him and he never knows why. He has no religion. He hopes being a left-winger will appease the envious masses of people who have less than he and his friends have, but never gets to know any of them personally either. Determined to use his talents to preserve the space for the rich interior life his introvert brain needs, he fails to find the working partnership his introvert brain craves next. Many people seem to agree that he's a good neighbor, but he has no close friend, male or female.

It doesn't take 363 pages to paint a credible portrait of a man who has everything but love, so reading this book is mainly a nostalgia trip for those currently over fifty. If you have or have had a Partner For Life, you can enjoy feeling sorry for Charlie. If not, you may enjoy sharing his richly detailed life travelogue of work, thought, passion, and the sense of mild depression that sets in just when Charlie is in his workshop enjoying the other things.