Helen of Nowhere

An embittered former English professor tries to make a fresh start in this bold outing from Goodman (The Shame). Separated from his wife, the unnamed narrator visits a country house for sale after being forced out of his job. The details of his disgrace come out gradually through his litany of grievances (“The fact was that war had been declared against me. On one side there was me, and on the other a faction of women”). At the property, the chatty listing agent tells him about the former owner, Helen, who lived off the land and turned the site into a type of commune. Here, the novel shifts into a surreal theatrical dialogue, as the realtor, now in a trance, soothes the professor’s troubled soul (“Your ego is trying to make you small. But, baby, you know how to write, you know what to do.... You need to love”) and, like one of the ghosts from “A Christmas Carol,” shows the narrator the error of his ways, pointing out how he’s overlooked his wife’s professional sacrifices and tried to control her. Some readers will be frustrated by Goodman’s formal experiments, which take precedence over resolving the problems set up for her characters, but her feminist refashioning of the Dickens story leads to a few satisfying moments of comeuppance for the narrator. It’s a clever exercise in exploring the shifting nature of power. (Sept.)