<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4Hink2_0wHkbKKF00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4Hink2_0wHkbKKF00" width="1400" height="787" >TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. Perhaps you feel, as our book critic Maureen Corrigan does, that now might be a good time for a stress-relieving laugh or two. If so, she recommends a new comic novel by Charles Baxter called "Blood Test." Here's her review.MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: It's a challenging time for social satire. For one thing, the country sometimes seems as divided by what it finds funny as it is by politics. But "Blood Test," a new novel by Charles Baxter, perhaps spans divisions because it draws upon a tried-and-true comic predicament - namely, the little guy who's forced to punch above his weight with a larger entity. That entity might be industry, as in Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece "Modern Times, " or government and law enforcement agencies, as in Jess Walter's superb 2005 novel "Citizen Vince," about an ex-con determined to exercise his right to vote for the first time. In "Blood Test," the entity is the pharmaceutical industry.The everyman hero of this tale is a middle-aged, divorced father of two named Brock Hobson, who sells insurance for a living in Ohio. One day, Brock makes an appointment at the local medical clinic to have a pain checked out. Here's Brock's description of the clinic and his fellow patients, a thumbnail description of a lot of places in America. (Reading) The parking spaces outside the clinic are usually filled. We have a lot of near-dead people in these parts. You can see them staggering in, breathing hard, young and old, propped up by their canes or walkers. It's probably the postindustrial air we breathe here, or maybe the nitrate-scented water we drink out of the tap, or the fact that a third of the town has a drinking problem and another third is on meth and/or oxy. You fall down here in Kingsboro, Ohio, you're in good company. It's a grand party of the infirm down here on the ground.The doctor, who briskly assesses Brock's pain as stress-related, also susses out that he has the money to purchase a product a medical startup company is offering. It's a blood test that can not only predict health problems down the road but also behaviors like, say, romantic entanglements or promotions. Brock impulsively signs up for the test, which also requires answering a questionnaire with queries such as, what is your preferred method for opening tin cans, and, if you found out that God does not like you, how would you fix the problem?Eventually, the results come back, predicting that mild-mannered Brock will embark on a major crime wave. Indeed, it's likely he's going to commit a murder. What ensues is a screwball adventure. And I do mean screwball. There's even a banana peel joke here, in which Brock tries to outrun his homicidal fate and assert his individual free will.If he is predestined to murder somebody, however, the most likely candidate would be Bert Kindlove (ph), his ex-wife's boyfriend. Bert is a handsome bully deeply immersed in a Dianetics-type lifestyle practice. He's also shamed Brock's depressed teenage son for being gay. Brock deftly encapsulates his nemesis' personality this way. (Reading) Bert has an imperturbable ignorance about the world and what people are really like. If you were to ask him where Italy is located on the globe, he wouldn't know but would despise you for asking.Humor, as we know, often arises from pain. Going back as far as his 2000 novel, "The Feast Of Love," which was nominated for a National Book Award, Baxter has wielded wit and satire to entertain and to illuminate harder truths about the world his characters inhabit. Brock's small-town Ohio is a place where the most flourishing business, besides the medical clinic, is Famous Discount Store, where customers can browse discount DVDs with titles like "His Holiness Pope Robot" and buy off-brand diet cola that tastes like fizzy, sugared cat food.For sure, it can be a zany place where people find themselves drawn to certainty through sketchy blood tests and lifestyle practices. But as Brock says, if you don't like zany, you probably shouldn't live in America. You can always go somewhere like Switzerland. In "Blood Test," Baxter invites us to laugh at this all-American zaniness and to acknowledge some of the pain that fuels it.GROSS: Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed "Blood Test" by Charles Baxter. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, writer John le Carre's son, Nick Harkaway, tells us about bringing back his late father's fictional spymaster, George Smiley, and Harkaway's new novel. It takes place between le Carre's Cold War spy novels "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" and "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." Harkaway will also talk about being le Carre's son and choosing his own pen name. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @NPRFreshAir.(SOUNDBITE OF DELFEAYO MARSALIS AND MONTY ALEXANDER'S "SIMMER DOWN")GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challoner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.(SOUNDBITE OF DELFEAYO MARSALIS AND MONTY ALEXANDER'S "SIMMER DOWN")Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.</div></body>

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What if a 'Blood Test' predicted you'd commit murder?

This is FRESH AIR. Perhaps you feel, as our book critic Maureen Corrigan does, that now might be a good time for a stress-relieving laugh or two. If so, she recommends a new comic novel by Charles Baxter called \"Blood Test.\" Here's her review. MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: It's a challenging...

This is FRESH AIR. Perhaps you feel, as our book critic Maureen Corrigan does, that now might be a good time for a stress-relieving laugh or two. If so, she recommends a new comic novel by Charles Baxter called "Blood Test." Here's her review. MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: It's a challenging...

What if a 'Blood Test' predicted you'd commit murder?

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