The Big Book of Misunderstanding

An entire family comes of age simultaneously in this funny and poignant novel, narrated by a gay 22-year-old son torn between embracing and rejecting his quirky suburban kin. After abandoning a planned suicide, Joshua Royalton returns to his childhood home to unravel the elaborate tales, theories, and neuroses he developed while growing up, including a fictional history of Chinese restaurants, a mortal fear of crows, an obsession with singer Carly Simon, and his parents' addiction to jigsaw puzzles.

“In his bittersweet debut novel, Jim Gladstone depicts the disintegration of a ‘freakishly normal’ suburban family…his nuanced characters are utterly believable…it will remind many readers of their own troubled clans.”
— TIME OUT New York