Book Review: “The Sun Collective” by Charles Baxter

The Sun Collective by Charles Baxter

This story is scenes from the lives of old people in the city.  This cuts rather close to home for me.

The Brettigams want to find their grow up son, who has dropped out.  Tim is out of communication, off the grid, and believed to be living rough.  No one knows why.

Searching shelters, churches, and everywhere, his parents encounter a loosely organized community group, “The Sun Collective”.  The SC seems good hearted and nice, but mysterious. Then two of the members become entangled with the Brettigams, Ludlow and Christina.

Where is Tim?  What has happened to him?  What is the Sun Collective up to?  What are Ludlow and Christina up to?  What does it have to do with the Brettigams?

Much of the story is a cityscape of Minneapolis (a city I do not know at all).  Baxter’s characters observe and talk (there a lot of talking) about contemporary city life, especially the lives of the poor and old.  The Sun Collective reflects many themes of progressive social improvement, and individual characters have their own takes on how to be good, live well, and help others.

But if you are looking for answers, you won’t find them in The Sun Collective.  No one really knows what the right thing is to do, or how to do it.  There are lots of good hearted people here, but no one seems happy or fulfilled.

I was going to say that the ending is ambiguous.  But perhaps it is just realistic:  some people find love, some lose love, lives begin, lives end.   Things go on.

(It is remarkable to note that this story published only last year feels so out of date:  this story could not happen this year. The city in the story is plagued by a lunatic authoritarian president, but not by a pandemic.  The tyrant is down for now, and the pandemic rages on.  Things are different in so many ways.)

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1. Charles Baxter, The Sun Collective, New York, Pantheon Books, 2020.

 

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