A rich, resonant, and vividly imagined character study. Schwartz’s second novel traces the contours of one man’s life, or his “journey to spirit,” across seven decades. As a small child growing up in 1940s and ’50s Newark, New Jersey, Cameron Simmons is so slow to walk and talk that his dad remarks there must be a “tortoise walking around his hair.” The comment, made by a generally aloof father, stays with Cam for the rest of his life—one spent, in part, obtaining multiple degrees at Rutgers University during the ’60s; avoiding the Vietnam War draft to pursue an ultimately underwhelming career in pharmacology; and having a tumultuous series of typically fumbling and often chaste relationships, including an early failed marriage prior to a more long-lasting union. He also raises an adopted son with a tenderness his father never bestowed on him; switches jobs to become, at 6 feet, 5 inches in height, the tallest—if not most successful—eyeglasses salesman in the Eastern United States; and settles down, at a later age, to begin a career as a writer with a modest following on LinkedIn. However, Cam’s figurative tortoise—eternally perched atop his head, wandering and searching, undercutting his day-to-day being with a constant sense of precipice and inadequacy—hampers his joy. Something feels, for him, forever missing, as manifested in myriad suicide attempts. Schwartz ably captures this feeling of absence in confident, cohesive first-person prose, divided into carefully considered and often wry chapters: “All the while, the tortoise was still hanging around, precipitating lapses in my development, confidence, and general sense of where the hell I was going in life.” Cam’s finely detailed and distinctive voice never falters, evoking the protagonists in the works of such authors as John Irving and Mordecai Richler. By straddling the political and the personal—from the Watergate hearings and burgeoning climate protests to Cam’s persistent, often aimless yearnings—the book offers a wide-reaching tale of humanity. A rich, resonant, and vividly imagined character study.
There’s a Tortoise in My Hair, a novel of a life worth living. The words flowed like velvet, I laughed, and I cried following the 60-year journey of the life of an extraordinary and blessed man. The characters’ energy and mental acrobatics left me exhausted at times. This is a rare book you know you pick back up to read again. Growing up and still being part of the Weequahic community gives you the nostalgia you could only get from Philp Roth till now.
Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2023
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2023
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2024
“Capturing each moment of anguish or hilarity with painstaking detail, Calvin Barry Schwartz’s There’s a Tortoise in My Hair is more than a life story; it’s a legacy of love—for the world, for humanity, and for the pains of life that shape our ability to love in the first place”
Betty L’Ursula
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read.
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2024
Verified Purchase
Unique, intelligent, and real. Very enjoyable story with real life struggles and discovery. excellent story that many would relate to, and thus perhaps inspire them through one’s own life experience and challenges.
Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2024
The protagonist of this well-told and ultimately spiritual tale, Cameron, spends much of the novel wandering through life, feeling like something is missing. Eventually he comes to realize that something has been guiding his life all along. This novel is filled with such a multitude of details about growing up in New Jersey, marrying, starting a family, and eventually aging, that you come away with the sense of a real life actually lived. Don’t expect a big Hollywood style ending; writer Calvin Schwartz is working on something truer, closer to our real lives.