Goodman

by Jack Houghteling

A younger person, itinerant and over-connected and uncertain, develops a friendship with an older offbeat family friend after he's summoned to go live with him and serve as caretaker to a little-disclosed illness. A story of two disparate paths crossing (one of the twentieth and the other the twenty-first century), Goodman is a meditation on our transitory culture; on whether language - thick as brush but full of Whitmanian possibility - can effectively and heartfully narrate our ever-complicating modern reality.

146 pages, Paperback

Published February 4, 2022

About the author

Author of Goodman (2022), Sunnyside (2023) and The Forest (2026).

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's nominally fiction, but reads more like autobiography, comprised of musings, memories, and observations interspersed with snippets of the political and philosophical to do with technology and economics. I found myself losing the thread sometimes, but the book is full of moments so well drawn that they will feel like your own memories. It's of a definite time and place, of the Brahmin US northeast and an elite socioeconomic status that will resonate with some people and likely annoy others. The writing style is unique, thesaurical, sometimes feeling too precious and other times allowing for perfect expressions.

[Gil Reavill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack Houghteling's first novel is a fresh take on the Bildungsroman, from a young voice that also gives evidence of an old soul. There's a stubborn, stingingly current tenor to the prose that offers a caught-in-amber portrait of a moment in an extremely literate ephebe's life. Bringing up echoes of such disparate authors as René Daumal and Thomas Wolfe, Goodman fosters a wish that Houghteling go further, write more, and establish a long and successful career in letters.