ABSTRACT
The title of The Unnamed, the 2010 novel by Joshua Ferris, refers, in all probability, to the unnamed affliction that affects its protagonist. Tim Farnsworth is a partner in a prestigious law firm in New York. He is a hard-working, talented, and successful trial attorney, who is devoted to his family, wife Jane and daughter Becka. However, Tim’s successful career and happy family life are sabotaged and eventually destroyed by the baffling, hitherto unknown disorder that he suffers: his uncontrolled bouts of walking. When his walking episodes start, Tim must walk where his feet take him; he cannot be stopped nor stop himself. When the urge comes, he feels compelled to drop everything he is doing at the moment, whether he is in the middle of a trial or an important work meeting, and start walking in an unforeseeable direction until he collapses from physical exhaustion: his sore legs usually give out from underneath him, and he ends up in the coma-like narcoleptic state. In the beginning of the novel, his wife picks him after he awakens and calls her. But as the novel progresses, he starts wandering further and further from his home until he is no longer able to return. As his condition deteriorates, it takes over his life by destroying his career, his marriage, and his health, until it eventually kills him.
