The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, by Jonathan Evison

Why do I keep finding myself reading stories of loss, these sad heartfelt dramas that make me cry my eyes out?  You’d think I would avoid them.  The title to this book is a dead giveaway.  I should have known this would be a tear jerker, and it was a good one.

Benjamin Benjamin is stuck.  Going nowhere.  In a rut.  I guess that’s why the author gave him the repetitive name.  Right from the start it’s clear that he has suffered some tragedy, and the loss has immobilized him ever since.  He’s 39, unemployed, unskilled, broke, his apartment is so small he calls it his compartment, his Subaru threatens to give out at any minute, and his estranged wife is pressing him to man up and sign the damn divorce papers.  If he’s not at rock bottom, it’s in hollering distance.  The thing is, he’s really likable.  Beyond the snappy self-deprecating way he tells the story, he takes full responsibility for his condition, not deflecting blame onto anyone else.  

His narration really is a trip.  It’s the bomb.  In the first chapter, after summarizing his destitution and explaining what he learned in the 28-hour class “Fundamentals of Caregiving,” such as “how to insert catheters and avoid liability,” he drives to his first interview with a real client.   “I arrive at the farm nine minutes early, just in time to see whom I presume to be one of my job competitors waddle out the front door and down the access ramp in sweat pants.  She squeezes herself behind the wheel of a rusty Datsun and sputters past me up the bumpy driveway, riding low on the driver’s side.  The sweat pants bode well, and even with three missing hubcaps, my Subaru looks better than that crappy Datsun.”

He gets the job, caring for Trev, a hopelessly crippled twenty-something who suffers from terminal MD.  As their story unfolds we meet a growing assortment of sad sack characters, each broken in their own way, and all striving against the odds to repair themselves.  Like Ben, they also make clear-eyed appraisals of their failings and, though they appear pathetic at first, they all seem to deserve a break.

I’ve already admitted the story made me cry, but it also made me laugh.  Out loud.  One novel, two great emotional releases.  How about that!  There’s wisdom here too, about the breathtaking preciousness of life, about the unspeakable desperation of loss, and about the unfathomable resilience of the human spirit.  It just keeps coming back for more.

One of the novel’s best contributions is to bestow the possibility of wit, humor, desire, and depth on all those wheel chair confined people we pretend not to see every single day.  Trev turns out to be someone you’d like to hang out with.

The story does reach a happy ending, not exactly joyful, but a realistic sort of closure.  More healthy than happy.  It’s a kind of closure we would all do well to seek when it’s our turn to face the deep chasm and the inevitability of loss.