Onward Toward What We're Going Toward

August 19, 2013
Miscommunication reigns in Bartelmay's debut novel about the inevitable attrition of self-delusions. This sprawling narrative straddles two disparate timeframes as we follow the converging lives of Chic Waldbeeser and Mary Norwood in small-town Illinois. Married in 1950 at the age of 18, Chic is set up for failure early on after his new bride spies Lijy, Chic's Indian sister-in-law, giving her husband an intimate backrub at the wedding reception. This furtive attraction blows up further after Lijy gets knocked up by a local man and convinces Chic to assume responsibility for the baby in a ploy to keep her husband from leaving. In a parallel storyâmostly set in the â90sâpool hustler Mary, still recovering from a heart-wrenching break up with her former manager, takes up with a wannabe bookie who whimsically moves her to Peoria, Illinois. Then, one night at the casino where she works, Mary notices Chic at the slots and decides to make a move. With Chic unable to let go of his troubled pastâhis sister-in-law's insidious lie, his failed marriage, the loss of his only sonâthe relationship goes through one false start after another. Sleuthing the distractions we entertain to cope with rejection and disappointment, Bartelmay's comic debut is a wistful take on the classic American reinvention tale.

August 1, 2013
Prize-winning short-fiction author Bartelmay debuts with literary fiction unraveling the fate of six snakebit souls. The setting is Middleville, near Peoria, Ill., doubtless symbolic for American life circa 1950-2000. Chic Waldbeeser is the younger son in a dysfunctional family. Diane von Schmidt is a teacher's daughter. In 1950, the two marry immediately after high school, honeymoon clumsily in Florida and settle down to be supported by Chic's employment in a pumpkin processing plant. Chic's father, a traumatized World War I veteran, had committed suicide. Chic's brother, Buddy, turned 18, left home and became an itinerant coin dealer. Their detached mother lurks in Florida. Chic is emotionally stunted, unambitious, befuddled by reality and not very smart. Diane is jealous of Lijy, Buddy's wife, an Indian woman from California, her resentment sparked by Chic's undisguised admiration of Lijy's sensuality. Chic and Diane produce a prodigy son, whom neither parent understands. Still a child, the son drowns. Diane falls into depression, comforted by food and Norman Vincent Peale. Sexually naive and stymied Chic, lonely and introverted, stumbles through a life soon fractured when Lijy has an affair, becomes pregnant and asks Chic to accept responsibility, foolishly believing Buddy will be more forgiving. The narrative flits back and forth in time, weaving in the saga of Buddy and Lijy, whose marriage collapses and then reforms after they open a health-food store and massage salon. Into the Middleville mess drop Green Geneseo and Mary Norwood. Green, a retired Las Vegas bank teller, fancies himself a bookie. Multiple-married Mary has been a pool hustler and barmaid. Both want someone to take care of them; neither can care for the other; and Chic is soon caught up in their mutual misery. Symbolism and metaphor are rife as the story unfolds, and only Buddy, Lijy and their son lurch toward happiness, while Chic remains mired in existential crisis, too ignorant to understand and too inept to overcome. "Lives of quiet desperation"--or a literary study of hapless people living unhappy lives.

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August 1, 2013
Chic Waldbeeser's adult life has been punctuated by a series of disappointments, large and small. From a thoroughly underwhelming honeymoon with his gorgeous bride, Diane, to his unexpected infatuation with his brother Buddy's new wife, Lijy, and the untimely death of his son, Lomax, Chic's life has fallen short of all reasonable expectations. Living just outside Peoria, Illinois, hasn't done much to bolster his career prospects, either. It isn't until Chic meets Green Geneseo and Mary Norwood, an older couple who decided to leave glittering Las Vegas for the cornfields of central Illinois, that he believes he might have one last chance at happiness. Onward toward What We're Going Toward is a deeply tender, unflinchingly wry, and deftly written account of one man's desire for deeper meaning. By contrasting episodes in Chic's life spanning from 1950 to 1998 and parallel stories from the lives of Buddy, Green, and Mary, Bartelmay offers a kaleidoscopic view of postwar Middle America. Combining the authorial style of Jeffrey Eugenides and Richard Russo with themes of loss, desperation, and reconnection, Onward toward What We're Going Toward is sharp, elegant, and poignant.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)