Author:  Joshua Ferris
Title:  The Unnamed
Publisher:  Reagan Arthur Books

Tim Farnsworth had everything to live for—a wife who loved him, a teenage daughter who needed him, a career that provided for his every want and need, even a huge home in the suburb that sheltered him. Yet he kept walking away from it all, literally, and nobody understood why—including Tim.

Suffering from some unknown, thus unnamed malady, Tim's body would overpower any sense of rhyme or reason and set off down the road until it collapsed in exhaustion. Only then would Tim regain control of his physical being and call home to have his wife Jane pick him up from wherever his feet had stranded him.

Author Joshua Ferris (his first book, Then We Came to the End, was a finalist for the National Book Award) paints a grim picture of life from the very beginning of his highly anticipated, second novel. We pick up the story as Tim delivers the devastating news to his wife that his issue with wandering feet has returned. This being the third relapse into the sickness has the family scrambling to manage their emotions and responses. Jane packs a backpack full of first aid supplies and candy bars, leaving it next to the door where her husband can hastily grab it on his way out. Tim goes to sleep fully clothed, knowing his feet won't wait for him to get dressed when they decide it is time to leave.

Although Ferris creatively describes the fictitious disease, it is the collateral damage of Tim's life that is the real focus of the story. The complications of his marriage, parenting, business relationships, and friendships will sound all too familiar to the honest reader as they are the same consequences for any of our addictive behaviors. Jane has to decide how far her loyalties and marriage vows to her husband will stretch. In trying to care for Tim, cope with change, and manage her fears she ends up catching the same disease of running away from life—although hers manifests itself in purposeful, long car rides and binge drinking.

Ferris describes Jane's feelings about God after Tim's new relapse:  "Anger with God was a tired and useless emotion, anger with God was so terrestrial and neutering. She thought she had arrived at a peaceful negotiation but in fact it was only a dormancy and when her anger at God met her at the end of the drive she was exhausted."

Both Tim and Jane's journeys are continuously circular—emotionally, physically and spiritually. There are beautiful moments of reflection and remorse, and heart-warming reunions and respite from the sickness. Several times these characters glance at sunbeams slicing into their darkness but they always shrug them off as mirages. Overall this is a gray story without any lasting threads of hope or redemption. (Readers should note that there are a few sexual reunions described between the married couple—and although not graphic, they are raw.)

Ferris never reveals what real life compulsion is on trial in his protagonist's life. The reader is free to insert their own addiction into the story and to weigh what the damage could take place if left untreated. Tim's sickness may not have a name, but as described in this book it can be as easy to catch as the common cold.

If you are up to reading a beautiful written and haunting book on addictions' symptoms, pick up The Unnamed. If you are looking for something more cheery, look for a story that focuses more on the cure.