A word of warning: The Unnamed is not a commuter friendly read. A critique of consumer culture and its received ideas, this cautionary tale will compel you to cast off the suit jacket, abandon the briefcase, and reach for the emergency-stop lever. Indeed compulsion is at the heart of Joshua Ferris’ ambitious second novel, which follows the bizarre plight of protagonist Tim Farnsworth. An esteemed New York lawyer with all the two-point-four trappings of success – a beautiful wife, daughter, and home – all that Tim has worked hard to achieve will be decimated by a nameless illness. Dubbed ‘benign idiopathic perambulation’ by his doctor, Tim’s malady means he is unable to stop walking. So indomitable is this urge that he will lose fingers and toes en route, fall asleep in all manner of hostile places, and be put under involuntary house-arrest by loved ones. And Tim is not the only one to fall prey to unforeseen, ‘negating forces’. Beside herself with the burden of it all, wife Jane ponders adultery before turning to the blotting influence of booze. Such are the devastating consequences of ‘the unnamed’. The course of Ferris’ nightmarish narrative sees Tim succumb to the lawless whims of his body and moreover, to ‘boundless interpretation’ – the most frightening unknown of all.

Ferris is not afraid of bold dramatics and at its best, The Unnamed showcases sparks of technical brilliance. Until the novel’s closing chapters, the relapse and remission of Tim’s illness provides a comforting narrative shape. As Tim yields to his ever increasing urge however, we experience an unnerving change of gear. Language starts to burst at the seams, and can no longer describe the altered landscape of Tim’s world: for instance Ferris turns to neologisms like ‘hyperslogged’ to convey his nomad’s exhaustion. This new sublanguage marks Tim’s transition into the rank of ‘vagrants and lunatics’. Equipped with only a tent and rucksack, he abandons the civilised spheres of work and home and resigns himself to the body. Nothing will be the same again, and a series of surreal events reinforce this impending sense of system collapse. The inexplicable death of birds and bees for example, is an inspired touch. Falling in droves from the sky, they read like portentous signs from some Medieval almanac. By these means Ferris transports his tale from the terrestrial to the apocalyptic, bringing The Unnamed to its thrilling, frenzied conclusion.

There are however, some griping flaws. The jeopardy of Ferris’ story rests on our hope and faith that the Farnsworths will pull through. But our empathy is strained. Jane is a brittle character with a battery of annoying, hard-and-fast lines; teenage daughter Becka is gleaned from the pages of Cosmopolitan, a teenage ‘type’, wracked with neuroses; and Tim is little more than the sum of his travel-weary parts. Despite the interconnectedness of their lives then, these are characters who appear to revolve in their own orbit; a serious shortcoming of a novel that laments the death of community. There is also the problem of authorial intrusion. Throughout, Ferris launches into his own florid commentaries: musings on life, love and modernity amongst other subjects. This conspicuous display of authorship sits uncomfortably in a novel whose central question is one of agency: ‘he could beat this thing on his own, couldn’t he?’ ponders Tim’s. Electrified by this quandary, The Unnamed holds a light to a whole host of metaphysical questions, offering no easy answers. For all its imperfections then, this is still a daring piece of fiction – and invaluable food for thought.

Reviewed by Rachel Harris

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