The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving: A Novel [Hardcover]

Jonathan Evison (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 28, 2012

Jonathan Evison has crafted a novel of the heart, a novel of unlikely heroes traveling through a grand American landscape, and most of all, a story that offers a profound look into what it takes to truly care for another person. Bursting with energy and filled with moments of absolute beauty, this bighearted and inspired novel ponders life’s terrible surprises as well as its immeasurable rewards.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Exclusive: Essay by Jonathan Evison

"Listen to me: everything you think you know, every relationship you’ve ever taken for granted, every plan or possibility you’ve ever hatched, every conceit or endeavor you’ve ever concocted, can be stripped from you in an instant. Sooner or later, it will happen. So prepare yourself. Be ready not to be ready. Be ready to be brought to your knees and beaten to dust. Because no stable foundation, no act of will, no force of cautious habit will save you from this fact: nothing is indestructible."

— from The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

The weekend of my sister’s sixteenth birthday, she took a road trip with some friends down to Lucerne Valley in the Mojave Desert. For two weeks prior, the trip was a source of debate around our dinner table. My old man reasoned that since she was a responsible kid, got good grades, fed her pets, and honored her curfew, she ought to be allowed to take the trip. My mother reasoned that it was a bad idea. She didn’t trust the other kids. They were a scraggly bunch.

My sister took the trip. She never came home. She was killed in a freak car accident the weekend she turned sixteen years old. The incident, the specifics of which have never been explained satisfactorily by anyone, all but exploded my family. My parents divorced after twenty-five years of marriage. I lost what amounted to my primary caregiver. My oldest brother was deeply depressed for two years afterward and was really never the same in some fundamental way. To this day, my family is still feeling the shockwaves. I’m still walking around with this sister-shaped hole in my heart. After a few beers, my brother will still lament the fact that he owed her seven bucks at the time of the accident. The seven bucks had been a point of contention involving the sale of a ten-speed bike. They argued fiercely about the money up until the day she left. At fifty-seven, my brother is still trying to pay that debt.

There are holes in our lives that can never be filled--not really, not ever. And yet, we have no choice but to try to fill them. We must drive on in the face of debilitating loss, crippling guilt, overwhelming hopelessness. Because to give up is to be dead. I’ve lived with this idea since I was five years old.

Ben Benjamin is a character who has lost virtually everything--his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. Broken, stripped down, stricken, and without hope, Ben is a shadow of his old self. He has been a stay-at-home dad for nearly a decade, so the job market has all but passed him by. With few options, Ben registers for a twenty-eight-hour night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving, where, in the sweltering basement of the Abundant Life Foursquare Church, Ben learns how to insert catheters and avoid liability. He learns about professionalism and how to erect and maintain certain boundaries, how to keep physical and emotional distance between the client and the care provider. He learns that caregiving is just a job. But when Ben finds himself assigned to a tyrannical nineteen-year-old named Trev, who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, he discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan checklists presented in his class have done little to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, scared, sexually frustrated adolescent with an ax to grind with the world at large.

When I set out to write this novel, I didn’t envision it as a road novel. I’ve never had a desire to write a road novel--in fact, I was very resistant to the idea. But the characters led me to the road. They left me no choice. They all but dragged me kicking and screaming to the road. It seemed Ben and Trev were always driving around in that van of Trev’s, but they were never getting anywhere. They were both stuck. They needed that van to deliver them somewhere--and I guess I needed it, too. Because that’s where this novel delivered me. The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is a story of total collapse, and ultimately, reconstruction. Before it is over, this calamitous journey will cover five states, resulting in one birth, two arrests, and one instance of cannibalism and including a dust storm, a hail storm, several shit storms, and a six-hundred-mile cat-and-mouse pursuit by a mysterious Buick Skylark.

Baggage is collected.

Hearts are won and lost.

Mistakes are forgiven.

Futures are realized.

This book represents nothing less than an emotional catharsis for its author. I wrote this book because I needed to. Because my sister went on a road trip thirty-nine years ago and never came back. And my family has yet to heal from this terrible fact. This novel is about the imperative of getting in that van, because you have no choice but to push yourself and drive on, and keep driving in the face of life’s terrible surprises. It’s about the people and the things you gather along that rough road back to humanity. And in the end, for me, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is the van in which I finally bring my sister home.

Review

Washington Post Notable Works of Fiction for 2012
Kansas City Star Top 100 Books of 2012

Seattle Times’ 25 Best Books of 2012

Editors’ Pick for Amazon’s Best of 2012 list

"Engaging . . . The journey is reckless and wild, infused with the sad rage that makes good comedy great . . . As this carload of misfits moves east, relationships are broken and forged, and Ben recreates a kind of family. This could be horribly clichéd and yet it isn't, because Evison never bows to what we expect from happy endings." —Jennifer Gilmore, The New York Times Book Review

“Evison’s third and most stealthily powerful novel . . . [is] a book so poignant yet improbably funny . . . [An] adventurous story.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"A journey back to life . . . bittersweet . . . It's moving and funny, and, my God, how refreshing it is to read a story about someone caring for a disabled person that isn't gauzed in sentimentality or bitterness." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“Evison’s prose is replete with his gifts for witty imagery and turns of phrase . . . With its extremely cinematic plot and collection of quirky scenes, the novel might remind you of Little Miss Sunshine meets Rain Man . . . The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is even-keeled, big-hearted, and very funny, and full of hope. Through Ben, missteps are made, and human foibles are exposed. But we also glimpse that distant shore of hard-earned redemption. For that, Evison’s novel is worth the voyage.”—The Boston Globe

"It's a story of heartbreak and healing . . . This is a novel with a terrific sense of the relationship between comedy and tragedy." —The Daily Beast

"Evison has given us a salty-sweet story about absorbing those hits and taking a risk to reach beyond them. What a great ride." —The Seattle Times

"Evison has an easy fluidity with the dashed dreams and disappointments of characters who don't ask for pity." —Seattle Weekly

"The comic novel may be the hardest work of fiction to pull off well . . . The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is a showcase of what makes a good one tick: Characters just a touch disconnected from reality, a prevailing sense of life's absurdity and a handful of rude jokes . . . Evison proves that some of the best comedy emerges from lives that have jumped the rails.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A warm, funny look at recovering from tragedy.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“A cathartic novel that will leave readers breathing a heavy sigh of pleasurable release. Its offensive at times, witty, funny, and an excellent example of modern realism . . . Evison offers readers bittersweet highs and tragic lows while illuminating all the sticky, messy passages in between. No matter what you’re in the mood for, pick up this little gem. In less than 300 pages, the weight of the world will feel a little lighter on your shoulders in the aftershock of Ben’s tragedy. Your prospects may seem brighter next to Trev’s grim future. Your eyes will sting from laughter at the dark, unforgiving humor. You won’t have any regrets.”—The Missourian

“A zany road trip from grief to grace . . . [A] sometimes funny, sometimes slapstick, big-hearted novel.”—The Oregonian

“Evison's brand of feel-good storytelling comes from life's trenches, where hope and humor must endure in the face of despair.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Evison has developed the command of craft and tightness of focus necessary to animate quirky characters and outlandish set pieces.”—Philadelphia City Paper

“I think you're going to be hearing a lot about Jonathan Evison's new novel. Reviews will mention the construction of the book (alternating time periods, brilliantly handled), the secondary characters (all vivid), the road trip (crazy and transforming), and the perfect blend of humor and sadness. One of Evison's gifts is creating characters that are easy to care about . . . It’s a thought-provoking story about two men trying to do their best in a world that doesn't play fair.”—Beth Fish Reads

"Luminously moving and very funny." —The Rumpus

“Smart and bittersweet and attuned to the absurdity of life -- Evison's book is the literary version of a good grunge song.”—LA Weekly  (“Book of the Week” selection)

"Let's not mince words. The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is far and away the best novel Jonathan Evison has ever written . . . It's funny, moving, and lively, the sort of novel that will appeal to avid readers and to people who only manage to read one or two books in a year. The secret, the trick to the book, is in the voice of the narrator, which feels so true that it simply can't be denied." —The Stranger

“Evison manages to find considerable humor in this plaintive story of care giving and receiving . . . A lively narrative with a poignant core and quirky, lonely characters.”—Kirkus Reviews

(The New York Times)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; First Edition edition (August 28, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781616200398
• ISBN-13: 978-1616200398
• ASIN: 1616200391
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #211,015 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.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Happy Reading! August 28, 2012

By Gregory Zimmerman

Format:Hardcover

Life is near-constant revision, because even the best-laid plans go awry. Take, for instance, the writing of this review of Jonathan Evison's new novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. I planned to tell you how the novel is part roadtrip buddy comedy, part meditation on parenting, and part blueprint for pulling yourself up by the bootstraps when you hit rock bottom. I hoped to convey how funny and cool and downright irreverent (German Knuckle Cake, anyone?) Evison's writing is. And I was sure I'd leave you with some notion of how important it is to roll with life's punches.

But, instead, this: You should read this book because it'll make you happy. I promise.

(Okay, just kidding. We won't stop there. That'd be silly. And cliché. And probably a little frustrating for you.)

So yes, this novel will make you happy, even though, for the most part, it's a profoundly sad book -- main character Benjamin Benjamin (never trust a guy with two first names, especially when those two first names are the same first name) is down to his last few bucks. His wife Janet is divorcing him after a mysterious "disaster" involving their two children, the story of which Evison weaves in periodically with the "real time" story. And Benjamin, having completed a course in caregiving, is making $9 an hour caring for a 19-year-old, wheelchair-bound dude named Trev who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

A lot of the fun of the novel is the back-and-forth banter between Trev and Ben. They discuss girls ("Look at the turd-cutter on her", e.g.), and watch the Weather Channel, and eat waffles. And every Thursday, they go to the movies. The novel really kicks into gear when Ben convinces Trev's mother to allow him to take Trev on a roadtrip to Utah (they live in Washington state) to see Trev's father Bob, a loser who walked out on the family when Trev was diagnosed with his disease, but who has been clumsily trying to make amends. (In one scene, he tries to ingratiate himself by bringing them KFC.)

They meet some interesting folks on the road and see some interesting things. And of course, the trip, like life, doesn't exactly go as planned. As Ben says, "Look, I didn't plan any of this, believe me. Not this trip, not these passengers, and definitely not what I left behind. I planned like hell for something else entirely. All this just happened."

A lot of questions keep you turning the pages quickly. Will Ben and his wife reconcile, or will they at least forgive each other? Will Trev forgive his father? And what really is the "disaster" that befell Ben's children?

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is the second Evison novel I've read, after last year's West of Here, which I also loved. But the two novels are very, very different. (And this is where the reviewer says something glib, like "it's hard to believe they came from the same writer. It's a testament to Evison's talent. Etc.) That's okay though. The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving shows that, when you have nothing to lose, everything else becomes gain-able. (Cue the silly movie trailer music.) Seriously, though, five stars - one of my favorites of the year.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars a bittersweet story ~ 4.5/5 stars August 28, 2012

By Bibliophile By the Sea TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Thirty-nine year old Ben Benjamin was a husband, a father and a stay-at-home dad, before "the disaster" that took the lives of his two young children. Now estranged from his wife, he is unqualified for most jobs, and hasn't even interviewed for a job in eleven years around the time his daughter Piper was born. A broken man, Ben feels like he has very few options when it comes to jobs, so he decides to register for a twenty-eight-hour program called, "The Fundamentals of Caregiving."

His first job assignment is to care for a nineteen year old young man named Trevor who has Muscular Dystrophy, and their beginnings with one another are rocky to say the least. Trevor is mostly paralyzed and angry with the world about how his life has turned out. His father left him and his mother shortly after he was diagnosed with MD. As a result, Ben quickly realizes that there are certain things that happen in caregiving that you just can't learn about in a short program like the one he attended.

Before long Ben and Trevor do find a rhythm that works for them. The two even embark on a road trip with Trevor's wheelchair van to visit Trevor's sick father, the man who left him when he was very young. Wackiness ensues and the quirky people they meet along the way makes for some colorful and entertaining reading. The road trip is an uplifting experience which allows both Ben and Trevor to make peace with what has happened to them and begin to accept and heal.

This novel is worth reading, in my opinion. Sometimes I find reading about emotionally damaged characters to be extremely difficult, but when humor is infused, which was the case with this novel, the experience can be ultimately uplifting. I was surprised to learn that the author was inspired to write this novel, at least in part, by a tragic situation involving his sister some thirty-nine years earlier when she was just sixteen years old.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling and fun read! September 6, 2012

By K. McCombs

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

With each new novel, Jonathan Evison proves that he can't be pigeonholed as an author. You want an atypical bildungsroman? Read his All About Lulu: A Novel. Looking for an ambitious historical epic? Read his West of Here. You want a buddy, road trip story that transcends that clichéd description? Read his new novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. Evison writes with humor, honesty, and a snappy cadence that propels you through the story even when you'd like to take your time relishing his rich characterizations and vibrant landscapes. Each of his characters is trapped by circumstances that are seemingly beyond their control but the joy of this novel is to see how they all begin to wrestle that control back from the beyond, little by little. They are all ready for it, they just have to find the courage and tenacity to do it. Evison reveals a true knack for writing these wayward, flawed characters in such a way that makes them completely relatable and worth rooting for. He writes with depth and heart and even a little bravado, showing the beauty in tragedy, the humor in life, and the power of connection.