Book description
“Charlie P is energetic, delightfully sardonic, dark without being oppressive, playful and very readable.”—Sven Birkerts
In Charlie P, New York author Richard Kalich offers us a singularly unique, comic, and outlandish everyman. Akin to other great American icons such as Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt and Ring Lardner’s Al, Charlie P plumbs…
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked Charlie P as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Constructed nonlinearly, this funny, playful, and complex novel concerns our culture’s pressure on men to “be” something; it’s also about the human sense of self in general. It has no conventional plot, though Kalich has created a perfectly workable structure: a kind of index that builds in intensity. Without giving particulars as to geography, age, family, or employment, the paragraph-length descriptions of Charlie P reveal him as hyperbolically great or defeated. Charlie P has accomplished both everything and nothing.
The character is an iconographic blank, perhaps an engineer or former bitcoin-seeker who, for all his striving, suffers an inability to…
From Stacey's list on fiction that writes against narrative convention.
If you love Charlie P...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Want books like Charlie P?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 88 books like Charlie P.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,366
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Charlie P, you might also like...
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Coyote Weather
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
