Blind Speed

By Josh Barkan

Book Overview

Finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize 2009

Not since Don DeLillo and George Saunders has a writer caught the humor and irreverent seriousness of our time like Barkan has through his protagonist Paul Berger, a flawed hero whose so-called fate drives him toward enlightenment just as surely as it propels him to destruction. Berger is stunned when he receives an ominous palm reading from a savvy guru at a health retreat in Iowa, of all places. And now it seems the prophecy is coming true. His fianc?e, who is about to leave him, is shot at a historic reenactment of the Revolutionary War in Concord. One of his brothers, an astronaut, dies on 9/11 in the Pentagon. And his more famous brother, a lawyer and politician, kidnaps him in a media campaign to win an election. But is Paul's life really controlled by fate? Or is the prophecy a lie he has latched onto ever since his band went under, leaving him almost famous yet unknown--a teacher at a community college, struggling to keep his job?

Blind Speed is a wildly entertaining exploration of intersecting lives in which what happens is never solely by chance or choice. Barkan has built a uniquely American satirical novel, a thoroughly twisted journey of discovery that pops and fires from its first shot in Concord to its last rifle blast, which echoes across the heartland. With global warming, 9/11, government and corporate deceit, and ecoterrorism, the novel dives into epic ideas, capturing America in all its dangerous myths.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810124939
• ISBN13: 9780810124936
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Triquarterly Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

a great read

Barkan's novel is a great read. The book is fun, funny, serious, smart, fast-paced, current, and historically-conscious--I laughed through a lot of it, especially the parts with Buffalo Man and his Retreat. With remarkable finesse, Barkan takes his readers through the flawed and very human life of anti-hero Paul Berger with humor and insight into what it means to live a successful life in a post-modern, post-atomic, and post 9-11 America. The Blind Speed metaphors are skillfully weaved throughout this finely crafted and deftly executed novel.

"He has been too late for most things in his life."

The attraction of this book is hard to define, the random musings of a man given to detailed speculation and an unwillingness to take anything at face value, especially after an unsettling palm-reading that threatens to come true in spite of the protagonist's resistance to suggestibility. Outrageous as Paul Berger finds the reading, he is blind-sided by the events that occur in spite of his natural skepticism. A former drummer who has found a temporary niche as a teacher in a community college, Paul is fighting a severe case of writer's block, publication necessary to keep his teaching position. In his case, publish or perish is no idle threat. Soon to be wed to Zoe, Paul is thrown off balance when the bizarre predictions begin to manifest in his life: a random shot sends Zoe to Mass General at a reenactment of a Civil War battle; Paul's brother, Andrew, is one of the victims of 9/11; and his troubled relationship with older brother, Cyrus, a ruthless and successful lawyer turned politician, turns sour when Cyrus demands Paul's cooperation in family matters. Paul is faced with an existential dilemma: is his future in the hands of fate? Is he helpless to change it? Never a great achiever, Paul is, nonetheless, a student of the arcane, the random detritus of the world he lives in, his mind a roiling potpourri of people, places, and the significance of human experience, an encyclopedic gathering and filtering of information in every situation that confronts him. Fueled with edgy satire and a gift for cutting to the heart of obfuscation, Paul carries on a running dialog with his daily life, albeit tainted by a poor self-image and a tendency to undervalue himself. But with recent traumatic events weighing heavily on his mind and the other incidents that occur along the way, Paul's imagination goes into overdrive, a loop of film that plays over and over as he witnesses not only the vagaries of his own life, but the more worldly issues that impact modern society: government corruption, race relations, immigration, global warming and eco-terrorism, to name a few. Barkan offers a wild ride-along through the convoluted passages of Paul's thought processes as he navigates the troubled days of his current circumstances, observing and dissecting, brilliant and satirical, cutting to the heart of society's pretensions and hypocritical posturing, the extravagance of material goods, a country's unassuaged grief and a personal life pock-marked with his brother's ambitions and his own shortcomings. Blind Speed is both unique, free-wheeling novel and wacky adventure, not for the intrepid, as bold as the impulse-driven American psyche, riddled with the contradictions of a world mired in acquisition but yearning for truth. An extended acid-trip rich with insight, this is a book for the unconventional, acerbic wit and poignant observations embodied in the dilemma of a refreshingly human character demanding an answer: is life chance or choice? Luan Gaines/ 2008.

A compelling example of post-modern fiction

No one should be allowed to read Josh Barkan's Blind Speed: A Novel, unless they are certified as having a mordant and somewhat raucous sense of humor. Feckless protagonist Paul Berger, a failed musician, was born "a little bit ugly." Like Al Capp's character Joe BTZFLK, who had his own personal storm cloud that traveled with him, Paul was born to lose. In Paul's case, the storm cloud is represented by an ominous prophecy concerning his life and fortune as foretold by an Iowa guru named Buffalo Man. Early on Paul is a drummer in a nearly successful rock band. Though he loved the drums, he eventually gives up on music, believing that "love is not enough...the notes came out only as good, not perfect." Blind Speed is a risky novel in its form and structure. It is nonlinear in that the author deftly uses a series of flashbacks to flesh out the story. It is also metafictional, reminiscent at times of the work of John Barth of Giles Goat Boy and The Sot Weed Factor fame. There is a fine balance between word play and postmodern self-consciousness and the page turner characteristics of more traditional genres. One finds, for instance the insertion of expository material along the way. In the "Coda" following chapter 3, author departs from the fictive narrative as follows: "Two other things I found while researching this chapter: The limestone of the Pentagon all comes from the same quarry in Ellettsville, Indiana. I thought it might be made of granite, but it's not. After 9/11, they used the same quarry for reconstruction, with 2.7 million pounds of variegated clear limestone, 18,000 square feet cut into seven hundred pieces transported on forty-eight flatbed trucks.... One of the conflicts that drive the narrative to its satisfying conclusion is the rivalry between Paul and his two alpha male brothers. Andrew was an astronaut who died on September 11, `01 in the attack on the Pentagon. Cyrus is a Harvard trained lawyer of boundless ambition and the ruthlessness of a cobra. Paul, suffering from writers block for over six years, is unable to finish the novel on which he has written a mere 45 pages. Because of his failure to publish the novel or even a brief journal article, he is one the verge of losing his job as an instructor in a community college when the tenure committee meets. He is told by the department chairman, Kominski, that he must publish something in the next two months to be considered for continued employment. His mindset is permeated by such a sense of failure and lostness. In a fit of self-abnegation as he left Kominski's office, he characterizes himself as an "idiot," a nincompoop, and worse. In his chronic despair, he makes the following observation at a "BATTLE REENACTMENT OF THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD" in Concord Massachusetts: Nixon, that goofy Vietnam War mortician was right: the silent majority ruled (not the rebellious, pacifist fringe); the majority killed for their property; and there was nothing really revolu

A Thoroughly Enjoyable Read

Paul Berger teaches at a community college and is a drummer in a band that isn't going anywhere. He wants to write, but he's blocked and he lives in the shadow of his successful brothers. And, oh yes, he sorta believes he's kinda cursed, because he was told a bunch of bad stuff about his future by a so called yogi at a health spa in Iowa. Paul's working on a book poking fun at self-help books and that's what this book does as well. Irony. There's a lot of witty sarcasm here, which at times went a bit over the top for me, but for the main I have to say I enjoyed the book, laughing quite a bit as I languidly read through the pages. This wasn't the kind of book I felt I had to pour through. I found I was able to read ten or twenty pages, then put it down. Usually this is not a good sign, but I found myself picking it back up again a few hours later and reading a bit more. In fact the book wound up in my bathroom and I read the last half of the book over three or four days in the tub. I have to say I liked the concept of Paul living under the shadow of that palm reading he got in Iowa. I like the weird and over the top stuff in the book and even though I laid the book down quite a bit, it didn't mean it was out of my mind. It must've of still been in there, still percolating, because I kept going back to it. Slow going for me at first, but I made it to the finish line and in the end, it was worth it. A thoroughly enjoyable read. Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

Fear of failure

Paul Berger, a little ugly, is 34. He is a drummer and teaches American Studies at a community college. Paul notes that the Old North Bridge in Concord, MA is hobby history central. He has dropped out of a loser band and after writing a mere forty-five pages of his book he stops. He is suffering from six years of writer's block. Paul's brother, Cyrus, a tenured law professor at Harvard, announces he will run for Congress. He tells Paul he will help him with his tenure problem at the community college. Paul believes his brother, gandiose, is given to epic thinking. Zoe and Paul met at a health retreat in Iowa. Zoe is shot at a re-eanctment in Concord. Notwithstanding her physical challenges she wishes to go forward with her marriage to Paul since replanning the wedding would be a nuisance. The author shows his his book outline, the skeleton. He describes in postmodern fashion some of the writing choices he has made. A female rabbi and a priest preside at the wedding of Zoe and Paul. It becomes a lengthy matter because someone rises to make an objection. Paul is encouraged by a therapist to strive for what he can attain. He works as a guard at a Cambridge institute after he is fired from his job at the community college. The institute is attacked by pretend eco-terrorists, although Paul doesn't know it isn't a real attack. Paul becomes the victim of a kidnapping. The book is very funny.