How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets [Paperback]

Garth Stein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

“Funny, bewitching, observant.”—The Oregonian

“Hits all the frets of a powerful story: sharp-witted dialogue, vivid characters, insight into medical challenges and prose that snaps like well-placed plucks of guitar strings. . . . I hold up my lighter and turn it full-flame for [Garth] Stein’s latest work. Encore!”—The Seattle Times

“Compelling.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Stein handles the many narrative elements deftly.”—Seattle Weekly

“An engrossing family drama.”—Publishers Weekly

Evan had a hit single, but that was ten years ago. Thirty-one now, he’s drifting, playing in a local band and teaching middle-aged men to coax music from an electric guitar.

Beset at a young age with a life-threatening form of epilepsy, he’s kept his condition a secret. But his deepest secret is that he got his high school sweetheart pregnant. Then her conservative parents whisked her out of Seattle and out of Evan’s life.

Now, fourteen years later, he experiences unplanned parenthood when he undertakes to raise the resentful teenage son he’s never known.

Off beat and disarming, How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets portrays a contemporary American family with unfailing honesty.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stein (Raven Stole the Moon) builds an engrossing family drama around a Seattle rock musician. Evan's the odd man out in the Wallace family: his dad's a renowned heart surgeon, his mom's the dutiful doctor's wife and his brother's a successful lawyer. His entire life, they've treated Evan like damaged goods, and in some ways he is. Hit by a car as a child, Evan now has frequent and sometimes severe epileptic seizures. And although he once had a top-10 hit, these days Evan gets by working as a guitar shop salesman. Stein ups the emotional ante of the Wallace world by dropping a 14-year-old son, Dean, in Evan's lap when the boy's mother, Evan's high school flame, is killed in an auto accident. Long denied a chance to be involved in Dean's raising, Evan is excited to be a dad, but it isn't easy—there's that exchange when Dean smacks Evan and Evan calls him a "rude little shit," for example. It's as if Stein has taken his hero, set a series of nasty psychological and medical roadblocks in his path, and then stepped back to see if Evan can find his way toward health and happiness. Following the emotionally stunted Evan along his arduous journey isn't always a pleasant experience, but the path is littered with life lessons that Stein weaves into the narrative with honesty and compassion. (Apr.) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Stein is clearly aiming for Nick Hornby territory in this novel about thirtysomething musician Evan, who is suddenly required to parent Dean, the teenage son he's never even met, when Dean's mom is killed in an accident. Evan, who suffers from epilepsy, is the lead guitar player in a promising Seattle rock band. As he struggles to integrate his son into his routine, he must also wrestle with unresolved issues, including his fractious relationship with his parents and with his straight-arrrow brother and the feeble way he dealt with his pregnant girlfriend in high school. Dean, still grief stricken and unsure of his fledgling relationship with Evan, starts to act out, and Evan must decide whether he has what it takes to be a father. In his second novel, following Raven Stole the Moon (1998), Stein struggles mightily to capture the commitment issues that Hornby incorporates so naturally. Despite many awkward passages, he does manage to hit a few grace notes when describing the music scene in Seattle and Evan's complicated attitude toward his epilepsy. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569474982
• ISBN-13: 978-1569474983
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #48,634 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Garth Stein is the author of three novels, The Art of Racing in the Rain, How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets, and Raven Stole the Moon, and a play, Brother Jones. He has also worked as a documentary filmmaker and lives in Seattle with his family.