Staff Pick
Lindsay Hunter is one of my favorite contemporary writers and this book adds a new layer to her already impressive list of accomplishments. Driven by the story line of a disconnected dad feebly looking for his grown, possibly drug-addicted (or dead) son, the third person narration places you directly in the tense and heartbreaking emotional center. If you're a parent of a teenager or grown son or daughter, you'll surely find yourself relating to this, even if addiction hasn't been an issue in your parenting. Some of the scenes depicting the disappointment between father and son are crushing, as are the scenes between the father and wife (and ex-wife). This is some real-life shit and Hunter writes as vividly as ever. Recommended By Kevin S., Powells.com
Lindsay Hunter hurts so good. This stomach-churning travelogue turns Greg — a rapidly deteriorating father to an estranged adult son — loose in a Floridian underworld marred by greasy indulgence and pickled excess. A Dante's Inferno for the calorie addict, Eat Only When You're Hungry packs an emotional wallop that leaves a serious impression. Recommended By Justin W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
One of Nylon's "50 Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017"
One of Chicago Reader's "Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017"
A father searches for his addict son while grappling with his own choices as a parent (and as a user of sorts)
In Lindsay Hunter's achingly funny, fiercely honest second novel, Eat Only When You're Hungry, we meet Greg--an overweight fifty-eight-year-old and the father of Greg Junior, GJ, who has been missing for three weeks. GJ's been an addict his whole adult life, disappearing for days at a time, but for some reason this absence feels different, and Greg has convinced himself that he's the only one who can find his son. So he rents an RV and drives from his home in West Virginia to the outskirts of Orlando, Florida, the last place GJ was seen. As we travel down the streets of the bizarroland that is Florida, the urgency to find GJ slowly recedes into the background, and the truths about Greg's mistakes--as a father, a husband, a man--are uncovered.
In Eat Only When You're Hungry, Hunter elicits complex sympathy for her characters, asking the reader to take a closer look at the way we think about addiction--why we demonize the junkie but turn a blind eye to drinking a little too much or eating too much--and the fallout of failing ourselves.
Synopsis
One of Nylon and Chicago Reader's "Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017," and one of Buzzfeed and Vulture's Best Books to Read This Summer
A father searches for his addict son while grappling with his own choices as a parent (and as a user of sorts)
Achingly funny and full of feeling, Eat Only When You're Hungry follows fifty-eight-year-old Greg as he searches for his son, GJ, an addict who has been missing for three weeks. Greg is bored, demoralized, obese, and as dubious of GJ's desire to be found as he is of his own motivation to go looking. Almost on a whim, Greg embarks on a road trip to central Florida--a noble search for his son, or so he tells himself.
Greg takes us on a tour of highway and roadside, of Taco Bell, KFC, gas-station Slurpees, sticky strip-club floors, pooling sweat, candy wrappers and crumpled panes of cellophane and wrinkled plastic bags tumbling along the interstate. This is the America Greg knows, one he feels closer to than to his youthful idealism, closer even than to his younger second wife. As his journey continues, through drive-thru windows and into the living rooms of his alluring ex-wife and his distant, curmudgeonly father, Greg's urgent search for GJ slowly recedes into the background, replaced with a painstaking, illuminating, and unavoidable look at Greg's own mistakes--as a father, as a husband, and as a man.
Brimming with the same visceral regret and joy that leak from the fast food Greg inhales, Eat Only When You're Hungry is a wild and biting study of addiction, perseverance, and the insurmountable struggle to change. With America's desolate underbelly serving as her guide, Lindsay Hunter elicits a singular type of sympathy for her characters, using them to challenge our preconceived notions about addiction and to explore the innumerable ways we fail ourselves.
Synopsis
Recommended reading by Nylon, Buzzfeed, Vulture, Lit Hub, Chicago Review of Books and Chicago Reader
"With this novel, Hunter establishes herself as an unforgettable voice in American letters. Her work here, as ever, is unparalleled." --Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Hunger
Achingly funny and full of feeling, Eat Only When You're Hungry follows fifty-eight-year-old Greg as he searches for his son, GJ, an addict who has been missing for three weeks. Greg is bored, demoralized, obese, and as dubious of GJ's desire to be found as he is of his own motivation to go looking. Almost on a whim, Greg embarks on a road trip to central Florida--a noble search for his son, or so he tells himself.
Greg takes us on a tour of highway and roadside, of Taco Bell, KFC, gas-station Slurpees, sticky strip-club floors, pooling sweat, candy wrappers and crumpled panes of cellophane and wrinkled plastic bags tumbling along the interstate. This is the America Greg knows, one he feels closer to than to his youthful idealism, closer even than to his younger second wife. As his journey continues, through drive-thru windows and into the living rooms of his alluring ex-wife and his distant, curmudgeonly father, Greg's urgent search for GJ slowly recedes into the background, replaced with a painstaking, illuminating, and unavoidable look at Greg's own mistakes--as a father, as a husband, and as a man.
Brimming with the same visceral regret and joy that leak from the fast food Greg inhales, Eat Only When You're Hungry is a wild and biting study of addiction, perseverance, and the insurmountable struggle to change. With America's desolate underbelly serving as her guide, Lindsay Hunter elicits a singular type of sympathy for her characters, using them to challenge our preconceived notions about addiction and to explore the innumerable ways we fail ourselves.
Synopsis
Finalist for the 2017 Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award and a 2017 NPR Great Read
Recommended reading by Nylon, Buzzfeed, Vulture, Lit Hub, Chicago Review of Books and Chicago Reader
"With this novel, Hunter establishes herself as an unforgettable voice in American letters. Her work here, as ever, is unparalleled." --Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Hunger
Achingly funny and full of feeling, Eat Only When You're Hungry follows fifty-eight-year-old Greg as he searches for his son, GJ, an addict who has been missing for three weeks. Greg is bored, demoralized, obese, and as dubious of GJ's desire to be found as he is of his own motivation to go looking. Almost on a whim, Greg embarks on a road trip to central Florida--a noble search for his son, or so he tells himself.
Greg takes us on a tour of highway and roadside, of Taco Bell, KFC, gas-station Slurpees, sticky strip-club floors, pooling sweat, candy wrappers and crumpled panes of cellophane and wrinkled plastic bags tumbling along the interstate. This is the America Greg knows, one he feels closer to than to his youthful idealism, closer even than to his younger second wife. As his journey continues, through drive-thru windows and into the living rooms of his alluring ex-wife and his distant, curmudgeonly father, Greg's urgent search for GJ slowly recedes into the background, replaced with a painstaking, illuminating, and unavoidable look at Greg's own mistakes--as a father, as a husband, and as a man.
Brimming with the same visceral regret and joy that leak from the fast food Greg inhales, Eat Only When You're Hungry is a wild and biting study of addiction, perseverance, and the insurmountable struggle to change. With America's desolate underbelly serving as her guide, Lindsay Hunter elicits a singular type of sympathy for her characters, using them to challenge our preconceived notions about addiction and to explore the innumerable ways we fail ourselves.