What is Ethel Rohan reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Ethel Rohan, author of The Weight of Him.

Her entry begins:

California by Edan Lepucki.

I first read Lepucki’s post-apocalyptic novel, California, shortly after it published in 2014. I’m re-reading it now because I’ll soon be In Conversation with Edan during the launch party for The Weight of Him, and also because this unforgettable book is—frighteningly—more relevant than ever.

In 2017, the strange, dystopian, hopeless, hopeful world of this novel feels all too possible in the not too distant future. Humanity has lost its way, and its soul, and our world as we know it is...[read on]

About The Weight of Him, from the publisher:

At four hundred pounds, Billy Brennan can always count on food. From his earliest memories, he has loved food’s colors, textures and tastes. The way flavors go off in his mouth. How food keeps his mind still and his bad feelings quiet. Food has always made everything better, until the day Billy’s beloved son Michael takes his own life.

Billy determines to make a difference in Michael’s memory and undertakes a public weight-loss campaign, to raise money for suicide prevention—his first step in an ambitious plan to save himself, and to save others. However, Billy’s dramatic crusade appalls his family, who want to simply try to go on.

Despite his crushing detractors, Billy gains welcome allies: his community-at-large; a co-worker who lost his father to suicide; a filmmaker with his own dubious agenda; and a secret, miniature kingdom that Billy populates with the sub-quality dolls and soldiers he rescues from disposal at the local toy factory where he works. But it is only if Billy can confront the truth of his pain, suffering, and the brokenness around him, that he and others will be able to realize the full rescue and change they need.

Set in rural, contemporary Ireland, Ethel Rohan's The Weight of Him is an unforgettable, big-hearted novel about loss and reliance that moves from tragedy to recrimination to what can be achieved when we take the stand of our lives.

Visit Ethel Rohan's website.

Writers Read: Ethel Rohan.

--Marshal Zeringue