Census

Starred review from November 6, 2017
Ball’s latest (after How to Set a Fire and Why) is an intensely moving and dazzlingly imagined journey of a dying father and his disabled adult son as they make their way through a sometimes recognizable yet ultimately mysterious terrain. The unnamed father, a widower, narrates the novel as he travels with his son as a census taker for an obscure governmental agency, entering the homes of strangers and marking them with a tattoo on their ribs to indicate that they have been counted. For the narrator, the census is both a reckoning with the human world that he is about to leave behind and a way of saying goodbye to his son by finally taking the trip across the country that he and his late wife had often spoken of. As they head toward Z, the ultimate destination, their encounters with others along the way reveal the beautiful yet brutal range of human experience. A brief preface to the novel reveals that Ball’s older brother, who had Down syndrome, died at a young age, and the novel is an effort to create a portrait of the person he had been through the eyes of his caretaker, a role the young Ball imagined eventually inhabiting. This novel is a devastatingly powerful call for understanding and compassion.

November 1, 2017

A Granta Best of Young American Novelists and NYPL Young Lion whose A Cure for Suicide was long-listed for the National Book Award, Ball is getting in-house raves for this affecting story. A widower with only a short time to live worries about the son he loves deeply, who has Down syndrome, and hopes he can give them more time together by signing up as a census taker for a mysterious governmental bureau. The road trip that results leaves him with as many questions as answers. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 15, 2018
A terminally ill widower and his son set off on a final journey to see the country.After a jarring but welcome stylistic break in his last novel (How to Set a Fire and Why, 2016), Ball returns to his spare philosophical style, employed here to portray a man with Down syndrome in tribute to the author's late brother. The narrator is this man's father, a widowed doctor who has recently learned that he has a heart condition that will be fatal. In lieu of simply succumbing to his illness, the doctor accepts a job as a census taker for a mysterious government entity that has him interviewing and subsequently tattooing its country's citizens, spread across regions designated from A to Z. It's a peculiar mission with equally outlandish instructions like "A census taker must above all attempt, even long for, blankness," and "Never expect help from anyone. There is no help for you." Along the way, the two men encounter strangers of all sorts, some fearful, some odd, and some with deep compassion for the census taker and his charge. About halfway to Z, the census taker abdicates his responsibility and creates his own mission: "I, who have in some ways always misbehaved, even as a surgeon, would misbehave going forward, I decided. I would go into each house and home, each town and village, and try to discover what was worthy of note." Written in stark, unembellished prose, the story is permeated by an undeniable sense of loss. We learn about the doctor's late wife, an avant-garde performing artist, and we learn about the man himself, even as he prepares to leave this life. But the boy is largely absent. As Ball notes in an opening statement, it's a "hollow" story with a lost boy at the center of it, the tale wrapped around him like a protective cloak.An ethereal meditation on love, the duty of a caretaker, and mortality.

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January 1, 2018

Ball (How To Set a Fire and Why) here offers a quietly epic work. The narrator, a widower aware that he is dying from a heart condition, decides to travel through an unnamed country with his adult son to help take the census. From reading the preface, we understand the son has Down syndrome, though this isn't explicitly stated. The father's plan is that he will die along the way and send his son home by train to a friend he trusts. The census-taking involves tattooing each person counted on a particular rib, and as the story moves along, each visit to a new location is replete with human insights and additional details about the narrator's life. (E.g., he was a surgeon, and his wife was a famous mime.) With the narrator's health continuing to decline, more truths are revealed until ultimately the son must leave the narrator to face death alone. VERDICT Focusing on how to protect our own after we are gone in the face of ignorance, cruelty, and disregard, this work combines a travel adventure with a meditation on human kindness to create a deeply perceptive work of essential truths. Highly recommended for all readers. [See Prepub Alert, 10/9/17.]--Henry Bankhead, San Rafael P.L., CA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.