My Name Isn't Joe

In this quiet, thoughtful debut, author James Thomas introduces us to Joseph Bogart, a thirty-something man living in the throes of loneliness and past trauma, while still somehow maintaining a mostly pleasant, calm and occasionally even funny demeanor.  He flies under everyone’s radar, not completely ignored, but also known so little that his workmates call him Joe instead of Joseph, even though he hates it. While others pursue life, Joseph approaches it more passively, which may be why true love has still eluded him.

Things start to change for him one day when he meets Aaron, the 10-year-old son of a new neighbor. Aaron’s mother struggles to provide him the most basic of his needs, spending more time manipulating the grown men around her.  When she starts increasingly leaving him with Joseph, taking advantage of his kindness and passivity, he and the boy develop a sweet friendship, with Joseph becoming essentially a de facto father figure to him. Some of my favorite moments of the book are the experiences and conversations these two share, which truly ran the range of emotion.

It’s a touching story which hits on those feelings of vulnerability and loneliness that everyone can experience at times. It’s relatable, it’s heartbreaking at times, but it also has genuine moments of warmth and humor to balance the heaviness.

It’s a well-written and lovely debut which serves its purpose of illustrating both the light and darkness of those struggling with depression and trauma. My only difficulty with the book is that the story pre-Aaron felt almost too quiet and slice-of-life, but once Aaron entered the story, I felt far more invested in the emotional dynamic between the two and also enjoyed seeing Joseph work through his own past.

Those with an interest in mental health issues, depression and family trauma may particularly find this a warm and worthy read, but those who just enjoy a good character-driven novel will likely appreciate it as well!

★★★★