The central figure in “The Unnamed’’ is Tim Farnsworth, a high-powered attorney at the mercy of a mysterious condition that forces him to walk to the point of exhaustion.
Hoping to establish a foreboding mood, Ferris shows an early tendency to flog the language. He opens with an image of ice raining down “like poisoned darts,’’ and cars being “swallowed undigested’’ by snow. Later, he compares a character’s tears to “stubborn nails jerked out of brickwork.’’ It’s all too much.
Tim also makes for a lousy victim. His malady appears an outgrowth of his single-minded ambition. He takes his wife Jane for granted and largely ignores his teenage daughter, Becka.
But one of the unexpected charms of this novel is the unlikely transformation of its hero. During a self-imposed house arrest, Tim begins to recognize his daughter’s sorrow - and her resilience. There’s an oddly moving scene in which the pair bond over her favorite TV show (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’’ natch.) He must also confront his wife’s desperation, which drives her to drink. “Had he never unplugged his ears of the self-involvement that consumed him about work when he wasn’t sick, or about sickness, when he couldn’t work?’’ Tim wonders. “Had he never listened?’’
A lesser writer might have settled for this simple tale of comeuppance. But an odd thing happens halfway through “The Unnamed.’’ The plot shifts from familiar themes - marital discord, suburban anomie, legal intrigue - to the darker and more durable question of how those forsaken by fate endure.
After a four-year remission, the condition returns, and Tim succumbs to a series of Jobian miseries. Hoping to spare his family, he roams the country alone for months on end. Exposure to the elements leaves him physically disfigured, while his inability to control his body drives him mad.
