 Publisher's Weekly, starred review
"Evison's debut-of love and loss, growing up, throwing up and moving on-is a stunner....Evison provides readers a viciously funny and deeply felt portrayal of a blended family and one man's thwarted longing."
Time Out New York
"Evison's debut novel glows with evocative details and unforgettable scenes...story of sweet complexity, about the people you want to hold on to, and the ones you have to let go."
William Miller--confirmed mamma's boy and weak eyed vegetarian in a family of bodybuilders--learns at a tender age what amounts to the Cartesian dictum for bodybuilders everywhere: no pain, no gain. I hurt, therefore I am--words he learns to live by in the wake of his mother's death.
When his father remarries a relentlessly kind grief counselor, Will falls in love with his troubled step-sister, Lulu. But as Lulu's behavior becomes increasingly erratic and inexplicably cruel, Will's sense of identity begins to founder. Faced with the knowledge that he can never hold the key to Lulu's heart, Will only clings harder to her, until his unwanted affection drives Lulu into a pattern of self-destruction which follows her into adolescence.
Lulu’s departure to college, marks for Will the beginning of a personal odyssey which includes a crash course in western philosophy, a series of epic bad dates, and the enduring friendship of a poultry-obsessed former Soviet wrestler turned free-market capitalist, with whom he establishes Hot Dog Heaven on the Venice Beach Boardwalk.
Working nights as a producer at the college station, Will catches a break one night when the overnight host eats bad razor clams, forcing Will to take the mic without warning, where his performance catches the ear of the program director. In a world made of meat, a world where the corporeal is everything, and identity is measured in mounds of flesh and striated muscle, Will finally discovers his strength in the disembodied voice of his late-night radio persona.
But when Lulu self-destructs, William is drawn back into her life, and ultimately discovers that Lulu was never who he believed her to be.
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