Ben is unemployed and romantically on the rocks. With few options, he enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving, where he learns to ply a much-needed trade. He also learns how to keep physical and emotional distance from clients. But one of Ben’s first clients won’t let him play by those rules.
Trevor, 19 years old, is in the advanced stages of muscular dystrophy. Other than that, he’s just a teenager–fiercely stubborn, sexually frustrated, and with an ax to grind with the world at large.
Trev and Ben develop a close camaraderie, blurring the traditional boundaries between patient and caregiver 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, this big-hearted and inspired novel ponders life’s terrible surprises and the heart’s uncanny capacity to mend.