THE SUN COLLECTIVE by Charles Baxter

After reading The Feast of Love, I thought I would love every Charles Baxter book, but sadly that was not the case.  Baxter’s prose itself is entertaining, but the storyline and characters did not grab me.  The title refers to an activist group whose manifesto preaches both love and anarchy.  Harry Brettigan is a retired structural engineer who picks up a copy of the manifesto during his regular walk through the mall with his group of friends called the Thundering Herd.  He refers to homeless people as Victims of Capitalism, and they seem to be the main recipients of the Sun Collective’s beneficence.  Harry’s wife, Alma, is actually more sympathetic to the group than her husband, particularly after she suffers an episode that may be a mini-stroke.  Two younger characters, Christina and Ludlow, are affiliated with the Sun Collective and add some spice to the storyline, particularly when Christina is on the Blue Telephone, a hallucinogenic drug.  Christina’s role becomes more pivotal as the novel progresses and we learn more about the whereabouts of the Brettigans’ son, Tim.  The problem for me is that all the characters, including the Trump-like president, seemed more like caricatures than real people.  The wordplay is the book’s salvation, but it’s just not enough.  The leader of the Sun Collective is named Wye, frequently misunderstood as “why,” and that’s the question I kept asking myself as I read this book and tried to decipher what the author’s, or the Sun Collective’s, message was.