Customer Reviews

Numb: A Novel

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Sean Ferrell grabs you by the collar and forces you to feel the physical, psychological, and emotional pain that Numb is unable or unwilling to feel. He jars you with the bizarre, distracts you with pretty women, and while you're looking the other way, pounds nails into your heart. Unlike Numb, you feel each swing of the hammer. It's like Palahniuk meets Steinbeck in a lion cage. They sit, have coffee, and play chicken with a pairing knife. You are wondering who is going to lose a finger and if the other will sew it back on. The read is refreshing and real, and I can honestly say I can't wait for his next book.

When a bloodied stranger with no memory of who he is or how he got there wanders into Mr. Tilly's Circus in south Texas, the only thing the battered and confused man can think to tell the curious workers who surround him is, "I'm numb." Though he means it literally, that proclamation also comes to be his name.

Numb's ability to absorb physical punishment without feeling the resulting pain makes for a highly successful circus act, one that finds him pounding nails through his hands and feet, making creative use of a staple gun, and acting as a human dart board for members of the crowd.

Yet it's only when he finds himself thrust into a wrestling match with a lion that Numb finally realizes his future is going nowhere, in large part because he doesn't know his past. And so, along with best friend and fellow circus performer Mal, Numb heads to New York City in search of his identity.

Once in New York Numb's life changes dramatically, as what had previously made him a freak and outcast in the circus garners him popularity and fame in the big city. Be it doing television commercials, magazine cover photo shoots, or even appearing on Letterman, Numb's problems appear to be over. And that's when author Ferrell pulls a brilliant slight of hand, taking what initially appeared to be on the surface a straightforward "Hey, look at the freak!" story and downshifting into a much more serious gear.

Through his interactions with those he meets in NYC (his agent, who may or may not have Numb's best interests at heart; an ambitious, and slightly psychotic, model he meets on a photo shoot; the beautiful - and blind - artist who appears to be the only one to "see" him for who he truly is) Numb comes to understand the necessity of pain; its role as the counterpoint to pleasure. Despite all his apparent success, Numb realizes he's stuck in a limbo world of sorts, wondering if he'll ever really be able to feel joy if he doesn't know what it is to experience pain.

Numb is a clever, offbeat tale of a man searching - both literally and spiritually - for the answer to the ultimate question: who am I? I'll leave it to you to discover whether Sean Ferrell allows Numb to figure out the answer to that age-old question, but I will tell you that Ferrell sure as hell has served up a book that makes you think about how we define ourselves. Is it by what's inside, or by what is reflected back to us by others? And when an author has the chops to both entertain readers as well as make them think, that's a beautiful thing.

I read NUMB yesterday, unable to put it down. Sean Ferrell's debut novel is about an amnesiac called Numb who can't feel pain. Beautifully and at times, maddeningly descriptive, the writing pulls you in and holds you there, though there are moments when you'd like to look away. As Numb amasses his scars, the scenes of his torture, both physical and emotional, had me cringing in sympathy. Yet, Numb is amazingly funny despite not knowing who he is or where he came from.

Numb, as it turns out, not only feels no physical pain, he has problems feeling emotions, too. The story is less about solving the mystery of his past and more about accepting who he is now - freak? Aberration? Loner? I cried at the end when Numb decides who he wants to be. I highly recommend the novel.

I couldn't put it down and even weeks after reading it, I still can't get Numb, Hiko, Emilia, and Mal out of my head. Numb's voice is just so addicting, witty, and poetic. Brilliant book. Highly recommended.

The beauty of this book is in the prose. Mr. Ferrell tackled a difficult task, writing a first person narrative of a man who is unable to feel physical pain, and gave us a book that a reader feels with every word. Numb, the title character, is a troubled soul and while his flesh is incapable of feeling both his soul and psyche ache with alarming clarity. A great read and worthy of your time and money.

A dark but brilliant novel about the necessity of pain.

Numb, the main character, has no family, no friends, no memory of his past before he appeared bloody and bedraggled outside a circus. Most bizarre of all, he feels no pain. People can drive nails through his hands, shoot staples into his skin, a lion can even stab its claws into him--he feels nothing.

It's tempting to see this as a prolonged metaphor for the modern condition--Camus taken one step beyond nausea to numbness. But Ferrell is too good an author for that.

The point of Numb's condition isn't how immune he (or society as a whole) is to pain. It's how much he loses by not feeling what everyone else feels. Ferrell shows us how integral pain and want are to each other. We can't know what we want if the things that hurt us and the things that help us seem one and the same. And if we can't know what we want, we can't feel love, can't even recognize it when it comes.

That means Numb is always at the mercy of everyone else's desires: the circus, his friend Mal, a surprisingly honest but driven talent agent who turns him into a major celebrity, several women. He manages to find lovers and abusers, friends and enemies, but he can't tell one from the other. Even when he makes the right choice, he doesn't know it, because he can't feel what his decision has done for him.

This is a painful novel, sometimes a little more graphic than the average reader might like. But Ferrell more than makes up for it with his spare, darkly comic style, his brilliant insights into what numbness takes away from us, and the very real compassion he shows for a character who, ultimately, wishes he could feel what most of us want to avoid.

I finished NUMB, by Sean Ferrell, over the weekend. I had no trouble getting into the descriptive, yet accessible prose. The writing is wonderfully layered; I'm still rummaging through the lingering thoughts and concerns in this novel left in the back of my mind. The story follows a man called Numb who knows nothing about his past - or why he can't feel any pain.

As he wanders through his days amassing scars on his body and soul, Numb let's other people control his life and decisions. He floats along, figuring when he finally discovers his past then he'll be able to grab hold of his future.

Along the way he attains a certain amount of notoriety, none of which he desires but that he doesn't avoid either. Sean Ferrell has a real knack for making Numb, the unapologetic narrator of the novel, likable even when he shouldn't be. He paints the insecurities and hopes of these desperate characters in a way that makes me ache for them, root for them.

It's a beautiful story that takes on an issue we all struggle with - that maybe it doesn't matter who we were. We can only take control of who we are and who we want to be.

I flew through this book. Ferrell's an assured writer and his voice is strong, interesting and funny. I loved the mystical yet down to earth feel of the book and the strange journey of the narrator. It put me in mind of the work of Paul Auster, another author I love.

In Numb, Ferrell creates a sort of avatar of and commentary on contemporary culture. Numb, the character, begins life fully grown, aware of and knowledgeable about everything except his own past. He starts his life in obscurity, grows a following, and, by the power of others more than any steps he takes himself, gets dragged up the ladder of success. He ends up in the spotlight, both figuratively and literally, as Ferrell casts his glare at the absurdity of celebrity.

Filled with interesting characters and situations, it's a journey I highly recommend.

Sean Ferrell's created one of the more memorable characters in recent fiction. The story is infectious and as the saying goes, it becomes a real page turner. The section where Numb appears on Letterman is especially laugh out loud funny. I look forward to reading Ferrell's next novel.

He blew into the failing circus on a Texas dust storm, bleeding and battered...he said "I'm numb".
That became his name, since he did not remember who he really was, or where he came from.

Numb worked around the circus and ended up as a freak who felt no pain, nailing his hands and feet to boards. He made friends with Mal, a fire eater,and they ended up leaving the circus and going to New York together. Numb had found a bloody business card in the pocket of his suit, and was sure he would find out who he was.

Numb and Mal made money, nailing Numb's hands and feet to the bar and floor of the sleazy place, betting that he would not feel it.

Numb quickly tired of the game and went out on his own. Finding an agent, who hired PI's to check on leads into Numb's identity, he went mainstream.

Getting into a snobby crowd, Numb seemed out of his element. He moved in with a blind artist, and he became her muse. When Mal comes back into his life, Numb sees things in a different light.

The story of Numb and Mal is both sad and sometimes funny as hell. Offbeat and well written, this book was terrific!

I received this book from Erica at Harper Perennial for review. Thanks so much!