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The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving Audiobook
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Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything—his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving taught in the basement of a local church. There Ben is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability, about professionalism, and how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider. But when Ben is assigned to nineteen-year-old Trev, who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, he discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan checklists have done little to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, sexually frustrated adolescent. As they embark on a wild road trip across the American West to visit Trev’s ailing father, a new camaraderie replaces the traditional boundary between patient and caregiver.
Bursting with energy, this big-hearted, soulful, and inspired novel ponders life’s terrible surprises and the heart’s uncanny capacity to mend and become whole again.
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“Evison’s prose isreplete with his gifts for witty imagery and turns of phrase…With its extremelycinematic 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 humanfoibles are exposed. But we also glimpse that distant shore of hard-earnedredemption. For that, Evison’s novel is worth the voyage.”
— Boston Globe
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“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.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“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.”
— Washington Post -
“It’s a story of heartbreak and healing…This is a novel with a terrific sense of the relationship between comedy and tragedy.”
— 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.”
— Seattle Times -
“A zany road trip from grief to grace…[A] sometimes funny, sometimes slapstick, big-hearted novel.”
— Oregonian -
“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 -
“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
Awards
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Selected for the September 2012 Indie Next List
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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A 2012 Washington Post Notable Book for Fiction
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A 2012 Seattle Times Best Book: Top 25
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A 2012 Kansas City Star Top 100 Book for Fiction
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About Jonathan Evison
Jonathan Evison is the author of several books, including All About Lulu, which won the Washington State Book Award.
About Jeff Woodman
Jeff Woodman is an actor and narrator. He is a winner of the prestigious Audie Award and a six-time finalist. He has received twenty Earphones Awards and was named the 2008 Best Voice in Fiction & Classics, as well as one of the Fifty Greatest Voices of the Century by AudioFile magazine. As an actor, he originated the title role in Tennessee Williams’ The Notebook of Trigorin and won the S. F. Critics’ Circle Award for his performance in An Ideal Husband. In addition to numerous theater credits on and off Broadway, his television work includes Sex and the City, Law & Order, and Cosby.