Benjamin Benjamin, the central character of Jonathan Evison’s third novel, knows a pain that surpasses all understanding. A stay-at-home dad, he watches his two kids, daughter Piper and son Jodi, die before his eyes. The tragedy is his fault.
The accident kills more than children. Ben’s marriage fails too—Janet, his type A, veterinarian, working professional wife, can no longer look at Ben, believing he caused the death of their kids. Ben looks in the mirror believing the same thing. Like his body, his soul has no home.
Going through the motions, Ben somehow finds his way into a night class called Fundamentals of Caregiving. It leads to badly needed employment as caretaker to Trev, a smart, horny 19-year-old victim of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Gnarled and wheelchair-bound, Trev faces a certain, fatal decline. He’s as physically messed up as Ben is mentally. Together, they make one imperfect whole.
Paste reader, you might never suspect from this bummer of a set-up just how inspiring and beautiful a tale next unfolds from Jonathan Evison. He gives us a buddy story. And he tells a story of parenting, with all its challenges and savory victories and heartbreaking defeats. He even unspools a road adventure story. In all, writing with sympathy, not sentiment, Evison takes a big swing in this novel at explaining the unexplainable. He embraces the sometimes-miserable, sometimes-joyful human condition…unconditionally.
Clearly, worldly personal experience shaped Evison’s literary vision here. With the usual caveat as to truthiness, I’ll offer Paste readers some author information direct from Wikipedia:
“Evison formerly worked as a laborer, a caregiver, a bartender, a telemarketer, a car salesman and a syndicated radio host. In this latter incarnation, he was the writer, producer, and host of the award winning comedy show, Shaken, Not Stirred. In his teens, Evison was the founding member and frontman of the Seattle punk band March of Crimes, which included future members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.”
John Irving, in The World According to Garp, addressed a background menace in life, a thing called “The Undertoad.” (Irving’s term is a child character’s mispronunciation of “the undertow.”) To Irving, the sucking, unsteadying constant pull of the sea on swimmers and waders symbolized the ever-present lurking possibility of misfortune. Think of The Undertoad as the gravity towards the grave that tugs at every human moment.
In The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, the misfortune can come as suddenly as a lightning strike. Evison offers this reflection by Ben: