ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL - Workman Publishing

JONATHAN EVISON
From the New York Times Bestselling Author of West of Here
★ ★ BookPage Top 50 Best Books of 2011
★ ★ Amazon’s Top 100 of 2011 List
★ ★ Hudson Booksellers’ Book of the Year
★ ★ PNBA Book Award for 2012
★ ★ #1 Indie Next Pick in Hardcover
★★BookExpo America Editors’ Buzz Panel 2010
Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything—his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood.
With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving, where
he is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability, about professionalism,
and on how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider.
But when Ben is assigned to tyrannical nineteen-year-old Trevor, who is in the advanced stages
of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, he soon discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan
checklists have done little to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, sexually
frustrated adolescent with an ax to grind with the world at large.
Though begun with mutual misgivings, the relationship between Trev and Ben evolves into a close
camaraderie, and the traditional boundaries between patient and caregiver begin to blur as they
embark on a road trip to visit Trev’s ailing father. A series of must-see roadside attractions divert
them into an impulsive adventure interrupted by one birth, two arrests, a freakish dust storm, and a
six-hundred-mile cat-and-mouse pursuit by a mysterious brown Buick Skylark.
Bursting with energy, this big-hearted and inspired novel ponders life’s terrible surprises and the
heart’s uncanny capacity to mend.
“Jonathan Evison is a gifted raconteur with a wicked sense of humor and an unflagging empathy for humankind
in all its sad, foible-filled magnificence. In The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, his myriad
talents are displayed in full bloom.” —Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers
“The funniest and most tough-minded novel I’ve read in a long time . . . This is his best novel yet.”
—Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life
“Sly and surprising, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is both a goofy road trip and a mission of
atonement. Jonathan Evison has the singular ability to make the heartbreaking seem jaunty.”
—Stewart O’Nan, author of The Odds: A Love Story
Jonathan Evison lives on an island on the coast of Washington State. His first novel, All About Lulu,
won the Washington State Book Award. This is his third novel.
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