The Charlatan's Boy, by Jonathan Rogers

A couple weeks ago I finished a fantastic book. Below are my thoughts on it. Andrew Peterson, quoted on the back cover of The Charlatan’s Boy, calls it “A new kind of story. It’s C.S. Lewis and Mark Twain rolled into one.” This is certainly high praise for this new novel, but I think this at once hilarious and poignant tale lives up to it in significant ways. Rogers recalls Mark Twain in his ability to reveal profound insights through the mouths of characters speaking in their vernacular dialect the homespun wisdom of the American South. He reminds me of C.S Lewis by creating a fictional world, whose fantasy seems more real than the one we live in everyday. Rogers compellingly blends these two aspects of his setting, so that the story seems to take place both anywhere and nowhere, so that you feel initially confident that you know all about where it takes place, until you gradually discover how fantastic his world really is. The setting created by Rogers just sets the stage for the other qualities this novel displays. He masterfully weaves the themes of identity, honesty, and work into the story principally through the two main characters, Floyd, a charlatan that makes his living selling tickets to his lectures on “feechie folk,” and Grady, the orphan boy that he keeps to play the part of the “real live feechie.” The story compels you to think of the meaning of identity by presenting Grady, who has no identity apart from what Floyd tells him. Of course Floyd is a consistent liar, and Grady knows it, so he grows up with no identity beyond the showstage one he chooses to embrace as a “real live he-feechie.” When lack of interest forces them to abandon the feechie trade, and Floyd tells him that he is not a real feechie, Grady finds himself adrift in a world where he does not know his place or who he really is. As Grady contemplates the types of people he could be, you find that, though raised by a liar, he puts a high value on honesty, and though his life is all about perpetrating scams on the people of various villages they travel around to, he yearns for some kind of authenticity. One scene that by itself would make the book worth reading occurs when, after Floyd and Grady have taken up phrenology in their quest for the next big thing, Grady is approached by a man seeking to know the character of his daughter’s would-be husband. Grady, who has practiced reading people’s body language, can tell from one look that the suitor has no love for the girl and only wants her money. Though the young man tries to bribe him, Grady will not be swayed and gives him a “true” reading. He writes: “That feller figured that him and me was on the same side of this thing. I reckon I can see how he would make that mistake. He was a cheater and a fraud, and phrenologists is mostly cheaters and frauds, so that ought to put us on the same bank of the river. But if he thought I was going to help him ruin that gal’s life, he had another thing coming.” Grady’s desire for authenticity causes him to appreciate the work that he does for its own sake. While Floyd generally sees only each scam’s potential for pecuniary compensation, Grady considers himself a “perfessional” and rather than thinking of himself as ripping off people’s money, hopes to provide them with the best presentation around of a “genuine he-feechie.” When a new scheme from Floyd presents the opportunity to revive the feechie trade, Grady throws himself into the new project, but as events unfold finds that his life cannot go back to the way that it was. Unexpectedly, though, he finds that he does belong somewhere after all. I heartily enjoyed reading this book, was a little sad when it was over, and plan on reading it again sometime. I would recommend it to just about anyone. *I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group in exchange for this honest review.