A FRACTION OF THE WHOLE

Martin Dean spent much of his childhood in a coma and the rest of his life refusing to play by the rules, mightily resenting the worship of his younger brother, Terry Dean, an outlaw folk hero, and driving his motherless son, Jasper, crazy. Their roiling life stories take readers to prison, a mental institution, a house inside a labyrinth, and a strip club. A suggestion box leads to mayhem, a murderer writes a crime handbook, Jasper tangles with a redhead he calls the Towering Inferno, and Toltz salts it all with uproarious ruminations on freedom, the soul, love, death, and the meaning of life. This is one rampaging and irresistible debut.

Martin Dean spent much of his childhood in a coma and the rest of his life refusing to play by the rules, mightily resenting the worship of his younger brother, Terry Dean, an outlaw folk hero, and driving his motherless son, Jasper, crazy. Their roiling life stories take readers to prison, a mental institution, a house inside a labyrinth, and a strip club. A suggestion box leads to mayhem, a murderer writes a crime handbook, Jasper tangles with a redhead he calls the Towering Inferno, and Toltz salts it all with uproarious ruminations on freedom, the soul, love, death, and the meaning of life. This is one rampaging and irresistible debut.