The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving — Jonathan Evison

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, held in the basement of a local church. There, Ben is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability, on professionalism, and in how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider.

But when Ben is assigned to Trev, a tyrannical nineteen-year-old in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, he soon 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 who has an ax to grind with the world at large.

Though begun with mutual misgivings, the relationship between Trev and Ben evolves into camaraderie, and the traditional boundaries between patient and caregiver begin to blur as they embark on a road trip to visit Trev's ailing father. A series of must-see roadside attractions divert them into an impulsive adventure interrupted by one birth, two arrests, a freakish dust storm, and a six-hundred-mile cat-and-mouse pursuit by a mysterious brown Buick Skylark.

Bursting with energy, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is a bighearted, soulful, and inspired novel that ponders life's terrible surprises and the heart's uncanny capacity to mend.