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A chronicle of the divorces and recouplings of the author's own generation, Tracer is a terse, surrealistic, and moving portrait of life in America.
Martin, in the middle of a divorce, is seeking solace. Flying off to the neon-lit south Florida coastline, he settles in for some rest and rehabilitation with his soon-to-be ex-sister-in-law. Martin quickly settles into her bed too, creating a situation that is bound for trouble-especially when his ex-wife also appears on the scene. Cautiously, the threesome try to sort things out, engaging in varied rituals of mating, hating, forgetting, and forgiving. A funny and unforgettable novel about friends, family, and the kind of quirky, complicated relationships that will keep readers rapt through the final pages.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
1 person is currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
Frederick Barthelme
56 books82 followersBarthelme's works are known for their focus on the landscape of the New South. Along with his reputation as a minimalist, together with writers Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, and Mary Robison, Barthelme's work has also been described by terms such as "dirty realism" and "K-mart realism."He published his first short story in The New Yorker,and has claimed that a rotisserie chicken helped him understand that he needed to write about ordinary people.He has moved away from the postmodern stylings of his older brother, Donald Barthelme, though his brother's influence can be seen in his earliest works, Rangoon and War and War.
Barthelme was thirty-three year editor and visionary of Mississippi Review, known for recognizing and publishing once new talents such as Larry Brown, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Amy Hempel early in their careers.
Barthelme was thirty-three year editor and visionary of Mississippi Review, known for recognizing and publishing once new talents such as Larry Brown, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Amy Hempel early in their careers.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
October 28, 2009
This book makes me want to rewrite every sentence I've ever written.
July 10, 2012
Barthelme is an interesting writer--much more plainspoken than his older, dead, famous brother Donald. Frederick (Rick to those who know him) usually writes slim novels and stories without any flowery writing and major personal epiphanies. Don't get me wrong--he can write--but his characters do not spend paragraphs and pages ruminating on their own feelings and the conflicts they experience. Instead, they do things more than they think about things, and we, the readers, watch and learn, trying to figure out what is making them tick.
Tracer is no different. It is a terrific little story, interesting from the opening paragraph, with characters whose lives are given to us only in the present. We see them on their own terms in the scenes we are getting, with almost no flashbacks to help add another piece to the puzzle of who they are. At times, the narrative may appear shallow, but this comes from Barthelme's entrenchment in a minimalist style. And there are beautiful descriptions of the commercialized gulf coast, via mid-eighties, that sets a complext tonality to the whole novel.
Tracer is no different. It is a terrific little story, interesting from the opening paragraph, with characters whose lives are given to us only in the present. We see them on their own terms in the scenes we are getting, with almost no flashbacks to help add another piece to the puzzle of who they are. At times, the narrative may appear shallow, but this comes from Barthelme's entrenchment in a minimalist style. And there are beautiful descriptions of the commercialized gulf coast, via mid-eighties, that sets a complext tonality to the whole novel.
September 15, 2021
Not terrible but not really engaging. A reader can sense that this is Barthelme finding his voice, which will be perfected in Bob the Gambler and Waveland. And I don't understand the title.
April 14, 2025
Minor shard of what I call Gordon Lish genre. Short, angular, absurdist.
Lots of incident, not as much development.
Today this might be titled Florida Man.
David Foster Wallace probably read this twice.
Lots of incident, not as much development.
Today this might be titled Florida Man.
David Foster Wallace probably read this twice.
March 14, 2018
perfect
May 2, 2019
Interesting take on how relationships can go awry. They do all the time. It was interesting.
Think I will read The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine next. Lighter reading.
Think I will read The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine next. Lighter reading.
August 20, 2021
Weird little read about the nothing that makes up everything in life.
September 21, 2025
A wonderful writer
November 15, 2010
What a weird little book. It starts out ostensibly as the story of a man who finds himself involved with his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her sister while they are all staying at a rundown beachside motel near Fort Myers, but it occurred to me halfway through that the book wasn't the literary version of crummy porn that the synopses makes it out to be, as much as it is the story of two sisters, sisters who are rivals and yet who absolutely need each other in a way the main character will never understand. He can have sex with the women, and he can even marry them, but they will never need him on an elemental level, the way they need each other.
I had some criticisms of the book, particularly that the main character, Martin, was rather weakly drawn. He was just sort of...there. And that's when he wasn't being a bit of a perv or even, in a couple of instances, a total jerkface. I had a hard time understanding why Alex and Dominica would both express sexual interest in this guy, as he just seemed kind of...meh. It was a bit like reading about an affair between a woman and a plastic store mannequin at times. As a result, I kind of had a hard time buying the love triangle, which is kind of a problem when it is the centerpiece of your story.
But even though I found the narrator weak as a character, I really enjoyed Barthelme's prose, particularly when he described environments and settings and scenes. Sometimes people run the risk of overwriting when it comes to describing stuff, but Barthelme's prose is so spare and lean that it never felt overwrought, just perfectly precise. I could read his passages of description over and over again.
I would recommend this book for people who are interested in language and dialogue and characters. Not the most plot-driven book, and the plot that does exist is, well, rather adult, for lack of a better word. Also, if the idea of reading a book about a man who does it with two sisters over the course of a week or so brings out the feminist hulksmash in you, then you may not want to bother. (Although my feminist hulksmash never really made an appearance as I read, simply because I was pretty sure Barthelme recognized that Martin, for all of his Mary Sue-like qualities, was also kind of a schmuck.)
I had some criticisms of the book, particularly that the main character, Martin, was rather weakly drawn. He was just sort of...there. And that's when he wasn't being a bit of a perv or even, in a couple of instances, a total jerkface. I had a hard time understanding why Alex and Dominica would both express sexual interest in this guy, as he just seemed kind of...meh. It was a bit like reading about an affair between a woman and a plastic store mannequin at times. As a result, I kind of had a hard time buying the love triangle, which is kind of a problem when it is the centerpiece of your story.
But even though I found the narrator weak as a character, I really enjoyed Barthelme's prose, particularly when he described environments and settings and scenes. Sometimes people run the risk of overwriting when it comes to describing stuff, but Barthelme's prose is so spare and lean that it never felt overwrought, just perfectly precise. I could read his passages of description over and over again.
I would recommend this book for people who are interested in language and dialogue and characters. Not the most plot-driven book, and the plot that does exist is, well, rather adult, for lack of a better word. Also, if the idea of reading a book about a man who does it with two sisters over the course of a week or so brings out the feminist hulksmash in you, then you may not want to bother. (Although my feminist hulksmash never really made an appearance as I read, simply because I was pretty sure Barthelme recognized that Martin, for all of his Mary Sue-like qualities, was also kind of a schmuck.)
November 11, 2020
“As a construction strategy I like piecing unrelated things together.”
Set in a half-developed, half-abandoned beach zone on the Gulf Coast of Florida somewhere between Lullaby and Odalisque, Tracer introduces us to a tangled triangle of Martin, his ex-wife, and his ex-wife’s sister together with the marginal characters who inhabit the zone.
To take a line from brother Donald’s Snow White, there’s “a lot of dreck in [the book], matter which presents itself as not wholly relevant (or indeed, at all relevant) but which, carefully attended to, can supply a kind of ‘sense’ of what is going on.” – and this seems to be, by his own admission, how Frederick Barthelme works. Junk realism. Put it together and let characters and plot find their own way through.
The writing is the thing – and Barthelme does have a good ear for dialogue as well as an eye for the weird, from inflatable rhinos to pancake parlours and derelict WWII night-fighters in the back yard. He can even go off on a two-page rhapsody about parking lots:
“I always liked [them]," says the narrator, "especially big ones at dusk, or at night, the way they look, all that open space, the glass in the cars shining, reflecting the lights...and they’re wonderful when it rains...because of the way the light splinters and glitters all over the place, and because of how things sound, how it sounds on a cool night when a car rolls through a puddle nearby, or when two or three shoppers walk past, talking, their voices distinct but not quite decipherable, or when there’s a breeze...blowing paper cups in manic half-circles, dragging crumpled cardboard boxes, rolling a soft drink bottle.”
I like the style, I like the book. But why is it called “Tracer”? I’ve tried to puzzle it out - even tried anagrams - but I’m still mystified...
Set in a half-developed, half-abandoned beach zone on the Gulf Coast of Florida somewhere between Lullaby and Odalisque, Tracer introduces us to a tangled triangle of Martin, his ex-wife, and his ex-wife’s sister together with the marginal characters who inhabit the zone.
To take a line from brother Donald’s Snow White, there’s “a lot of dreck in [the book], matter which presents itself as not wholly relevant (or indeed, at all relevant) but which, carefully attended to, can supply a kind of ‘sense’ of what is going on.” – and this seems to be, by his own admission, how Frederick Barthelme works. Junk realism. Put it together and let characters and plot find their own way through.
The writing is the thing – and Barthelme does have a good ear for dialogue as well as an eye for the weird, from inflatable rhinos to pancake parlours and derelict WWII night-fighters in the back yard. He can even go off on a two-page rhapsody about parking lots:
“I always liked [them]," says the narrator, "especially big ones at dusk, or at night, the way they look, all that open space, the glass in the cars shining, reflecting the lights...and they’re wonderful when it rains...because of the way the light splinters and glitters all over the place, and because of how things sound, how it sounds on a cool night when a car rolls through a puddle nearby, or when two or three shoppers walk past, talking, their voices distinct but not quite decipherable, or when there’s a breeze...blowing paper cups in manic half-circles, dragging crumpled cardboard boxes, rolling a soft drink bottle.”
I like the style, I like the book. But why is it called “Tracer”? I’ve tried to puzzle it out - even tried anagrams - but I’m still mystified...
February 11, 2008
Frederick Barthelme, Tracer (Penguin, 1985)
When you're a writer, and your brother is a writer, you have to expect the comparisons, especially if the two of you tend to float in the same water. The particular swimming pool that is eighties literature, [urinated] in on a fairly regular basis by Papa Hemingway and Sinclair Lewis, is home to the Barthelme brothers. And as much as I hate to draw obvious comparisons and judge by them, Donald's the better writer.
Still, Fred is capable of turning a decent tale. His protagonist is on the cusp of divorce, staying in Florida with his soon-to-be-ex-wife's sister. The two never quite get romantically entangled, but they share bed space every once in a while, which makes things slightly uncomfortable when the wife shows up.
Frederick Barthelme's strength resides in his ability to create minor characters and setting; much of what goes on around the main triangle here is memorable, in ways (as much as I hate to do it again... it's the same kind of semi-dada whimsy that inhabits Donald's more notable works). The problem is that the main plot, what little there is of it, never really gets off the ground. The main characters don't have the emotional depth to hold the minimal changes in their emotional states that Frederick is trying to use to signal the way their relationships are changing towards one another. He's also guilty of giving just enough in places to be ambiguous about what events will transpire, then cutting to the next morning without us knowing exactly what went on, and then never following up.
Could've been good. Left a lot to be desired. **
When you're a writer, and your brother is a writer, you have to expect the comparisons, especially if the two of you tend to float in the same water. The particular swimming pool that is eighties literature, [urinated] in on a fairly regular basis by Papa Hemingway and Sinclair Lewis, is home to the Barthelme brothers. And as much as I hate to draw obvious comparisons and judge by them, Donald's the better writer.
Still, Fred is capable of turning a decent tale. His protagonist is on the cusp of divorce, staying in Florida with his soon-to-be-ex-wife's sister. The two never quite get romantically entangled, but they share bed space every once in a while, which makes things slightly uncomfortable when the wife shows up.
Frederick Barthelme's strength resides in his ability to create minor characters and setting; much of what goes on around the main triangle here is memorable, in ways (as much as I hate to do it again... it's the same kind of semi-dada whimsy that inhabits Donald's more notable works). The problem is that the main plot, what little there is of it, never really gets off the ground. The main characters don't have the emotional depth to hold the minimal changes in their emotional states that Frederick is trying to use to signal the way their relationships are changing towards one another. He's also guilty of giving just enough in places to be ambiguous about what events will transpire, then cutting to the next morning without us knowing exactly what went on, and then never following up.
Could've been good. Left a lot to be desired. **
August 31, 2016
I'd read this before but didn't remember it being this boring. The characters seem to always be going to sleep or just waking up. Ok, slight exaggeration, but seriously, that is a problem. Does he get a pass because it's something of an 80s period piece? Boring is boring. Yet, Barthelme is ever the stylist, so there's that. I'm guessing Moon Deluxe: Stories hold up better, but think I need to reread that one now.
November 11, 2014
Don't understand how low the rating is compared to how other works here are rated. Anyways, I liked it. It was an easy read. Usually I don't like slow paced books where nothing happens but I liked this one. The Penguin 1986 edition also has super comfortable script to read, maybe the best I've encountered ! Kudos !
May 20, 2015
Frederick Barthelme's "Tracer" was published under the Penguin "Contemporary American Fiction" imprint in 1985. It was engaging and enjoyable, but what was stylistically innovative in 1985 seems somewhat dated 30 years later. Still, recommended. Four stars.
June 24, 2008
Lots of great descriptions of water and light. Everything felt true, even the vague binding ties.
May 25, 2009
I like the way Florida appears here. There is rubble in the parking lot.
July 1, 2015
I read this book about a decade ago, but keep referring back to it for its style.
January 5, 2015
How does Fred B make this so real and I could write the same thing and it would be more than shit? What do that call that, mastering your craft? Reaching max level? He is sensei.
July 28, 2016
A brief exercise in the "Isn't life strange?" vein
which falls short of the comic highs typical
of the Barthelme oeuvre.
which falls short of the comic highs typical
of the Barthelme oeuvre.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews