All About Lulu: A Novel [Paperback]

Jonathan Evison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 2008

Weakness has always been a concern for William Miller: growing up vegetarian in a family of bodybuilders will do that to a person. But William is further weakened by the death of his mother, the arrival of a new step-mother, and his irrepressible crush on his new step-sister, Lulu. As Lulu faces down her own challenges, William watches his life shift into tumult and despair. Once Lulu departs for college, Will goes into the world to find himself — discovering Western philosophy, a cruel dating world, enduring friendship, and, ultimately, his true calling. Emboldened by his turn as a late-night radio personality, Will rescues himself from the self-image of weakness he'd long wished to escape. This debut novel explores the fundamental difference between where we come from — and the endless possibilities of where we may go.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Evison's debut—of love and loss, growing up, throwing up and moving on—is a stunner. William Miller Jr. is a scrawny loner whose mother dies of cancer when he is seven years old, leaving him an awkward vegetarian with an ominously macho father and idiot twin brothers in mid-1970s Santa Monica. William's father, Big Bill, remarries a grief counselor named Willow, and Will spends the following decades in love with Louisa (Lulu, as she prefers to be called), his new stepsister. They are close throughout adolescence, but after a summer at cheerleading camp, Lulu returns home distant and hostile, leaving Will to pine for her in solitary desperation. Will finally appears to be on the path to normalcy in the early 1990s when he lucks into a radio talk-show hosting gig, but the stroke of good fortune is short-lived, as he discovers things about Lulu he'd rather not know. Evison provides readers a viciously funny and deeply felt portrayal of a blended family and one man's thwarted longing. (July)
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Review

"All About Lulu is an exhilarating, wholly original and brave novel about obsession, love and becoming. With Will Miller Evison has created a thoroughly modern protagonist steeped in Dickensian complexity, pure yet conflicted, lost yet driven to find truth in the dysfunctional American abyss." -- James P. Othmer, author of The Futurist

"Anyone who has ever experienced obsessive love -- or wanted to experience obsessive love -- will find themselves at home in Jonathan Evison's All About Lulu. The voice is fresh as this morning's rain, the emotions are universal. Read this book and realize you aren't the only one knocked stupid for love." -- Tim Sandlin, author of Western Swing

"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." -- Time Out New York

"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." -- Publisher's Weekly, starred review

"Most novels in which a boy must oil up his bodybuilder father for competition would merit our attention, but that detail is just one of many amazements on offer in All About Lulu. Will the Thrill is a great literary charmer, and through his rich voice Jonathan Evison has concocted a funny and painfully honest piece of fiction." -- Sam Lipsyte

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Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press (July 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593761961
• ISBN-13: 978-1593761967
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #292,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonathan Evison is the author of the critically acclaimed novels All About Lulu, and West of Here. He was the recipient of a 2009 Christopher Isherwood Fellowship. He lives on an island in western Washington. He likes rabbits.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In the glow of Lulu, June 3, 2008

By 

C. C. Swann "teacher_reader_writer" (Atlanta, Georgia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: All About Lulu: A Novel (Paperback)

This is what Wally Lamb wanted to do with his novel "She's Come Undone" (1992)--write a bildungsroman about a sympathetic loser with a crazy family and a unique voice whose story, set over a span of decades, offers a glimpse of America's recent past. The difference is, Lamb almost pulled it off with a really good book. Evison not only pulls it off, but hits it out of the park with a great book--part "Catcher in the Rye," part "Lolita," part "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius."

William Miller, his protagonist, is a wimpy vegetarian in a family of hulking, meat-eating bodybuilders. His step-sister, Lulu, is his lone comrade, and soon becomes the love of Will's life, the center of everything for him. Much of the novel dwells on what happens when his center abruptly abandons him, leaving him with a gaping hole to fill with something--Fatburgers, radio, Hot Dog Heaven, disastrous would-be one-night stands, even Kierkegaard. This idea of emptiness permeates the novel. " 'I feel like a bagel,' " one of Will's former teachers confides to him. " 'Like there's a hole in the center of me.' " Will's narrated response is succinct: "I lived that feeling for most of my life, but I didn't say so. There were times when I felt like the hole and not the bagel, but I didn't tell him that either."

Serious stuff, true. But rather than devolve into a whining diatribe, like a third-rate Holden Caulfield, "All About Lulu" is both very funny and very honest. Evison takes William, an outcast within his own family, and reveals him with all his flaws and pettiness as well as with his capacity to love and grow and learn. Nicely tied-up happy endings aren't plentiful in this novel. "No pain, no gain" is the Miller family motto, and William faces plenty of pain and loss, but all against a hazy background of hope against all odds. While William is by far the most engaging character, the supporting cast is solid--Big Bill, William's bodybuilding father; Eugene Gobernecki, ex-Soviet emigre and fierce capitalist; Troy, William's best friend and romantic rival; and, of course, Lulu, who is both stepsister and siren to William and is wisely kept off-stage for much of the novel by Evison. Her appearances are startling and convincing, and even when she is gone, Will--and by extension, the reader--basks in her afterglow. Along the way Will shows us life in America from the '60s to the '90s, from the Summer of Love to the Reagan Revolution and the grunge movement in Seattle. There's even a hilarious cameo appearance by a certain former bodybuilder turned movie star.

For everyone who's had to suffer unrequited or even semi-requited love, and that covers most people on the planet, "All About Lulu" is a must.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars wounded and beautiful, October 8, 2009

By 

patrick gulke - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: All About Lulu: A Novel (Paperback)

i heard a friend describe All About Lulu as a book with a bruised heart. i can't think of a more apt description. wounded and bruised at it's core, it is also tender, insightful, loving, and often hilarious. characters that could easily have come off as cartoonish, or mere quirky templates, in Evison's hands become fully realized, filled with life, detail, and breath. the character's aren't just "lived in" (in the writerly sense) they are also lived with and learned from. Will's obsessive fixation with his first love, his enigma and stepsister Lulu, is rendered in a brutally honest way. filled with the bitter sting of youthful longing, it holds tight to that tension between the head's absurd grandiosity and the heart's attention to the softest, simplest of details. where it still holds true that all the answers to the universe are held within the smallest of minutiae.

admittedly, there were moments where the narrator's voice began to grate. i felt for him, but i wasn't sure i liked him or wanted to listen to him anymore. i had mixed feelings about the story's resolution. revelations that are meant to answer looming questions left me, a bit underwhelmed, with still more questions. while it made sense narratively, i just wanted the enigma back. at times, i feared that the writer's voice and ambition, were encroaching, threatening to overwhelm the narrative and the voice of the characters. all of this, however, is minor quibbling with a book this generous, with this much heart, capable of provoking this much emotion. for any personal reservations i might have had at first read, i know it's a book i want to share with others.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All in the Family (For Meatheads and other lovable losers), June 4, 2008

By 

Hugh Schulze - See all my reviews
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This review is from: All About Lulu: A Novel (Paperback)

"All about Lulu" is a rare blend of books: a fun summer read with enough humorous philosophical asides to keep you thinking long after you've turned the last page; a coming-of-age story with an insightful maturity about what it means to be a part of an American family. (And no, not the kind of dour American family novel that makes you wish you had been raised by wolves.) It's a pleasure reading a book that continually surprises you and revels in its own Dickensian assortment of memorable characters

"How do you mend a broken heart?" the Bee Gees asked. I'd tell you how Lulu's narrator, William Miller, would answer that question - but that'd be giving away the ending. (And the ending alone is worth the price of admission.)