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The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

by Jonathan Evison (Goodreads Author), Jeff Woodman (Narrator)

3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 · rating details · 1,815 ratings · 432 reviews

Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything—his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving taught in the basement of a local church. There Ben is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability, about professionalism, and how to keep physical and emotiona...more

Audio CD, 555 pages

Published August 28th 2012 by HighBridge Company

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Oct 01, 2012 Ben Loory rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

the secret to jonathan evison's success, i think, is that he's both emotionally courageous AND funny as hell, which is a rare and electrifying mix. i read this book straight through in one sitting and then i went out and ran around the block. (i don't run.)

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Sep 05, 2012 John Luiz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jonathan Evison has been on my radar ever since I saw All About Lulu in bookstores, but I just hadn't gotten around yet to reading any of his novels. After reading the Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, though, I'll be sure to catch up with what I've been missing by reading Lulu and West of Here. Revised Fundamentals provides everything I look for in a novel - a fully fleshed out protagonist caught up in something that the author explores in both a serious and comic vein, a supporting cast of f...more Jonathan Evison has been on my radar ever since I saw All About Lulu in bookstores, but I just hadn't gotten around yet to reading any of his novels. After reading the Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, though, I'll be sure to catch up with what I've been missing by reading Lulu and West of Here. Revised Fundamentals provides everything I look for in a novel - a fully fleshed out protagonist caught up in something that the author explores in both a serious and comic vein, a supporting cast of fully rounded out characters, and a writing style that lets you know you're in the hands of an author who knows how to turn a sentence and a story.

In many blurbs and reviews, Revised Fundamentals is discussed as a road novel, but the road aspects of the novel don't kick in until about halfway through. The first half of the book explores the relationship between the central character, Benjamin Benjamin, and the young man, Trev, with muscular dystrophy that he is hired to take care of. In alternating chapters we also get flashbacks to the great horror of Benjamin's life - the accidental death of his two young children, which he feels partly to blame for. There's a slow reveal of what actually happened, though you can guess early on. When you do finally get the full story, it's devastating.

To lighten that serious stuff, the author provides plenty of comic relief. It's been several years since the tragic accident, and Benjamin's wife has moved on with her life. Like most couples who experience the death of a child, they've separated and his wife has found a new man. She wants Benjamin to sign the divorce papers, and when he refuses to do so, she sics a process server on him. Benjamin's attempts to elude the server, while also dealing with a crazy neighbor in his apartment building who thinks he's feeding chocolate to her cat and killing one of her plants by dropping cigarette butts in its pot (he doesn't smoke) is very funny.

The relationship with his patient, Trev, is also terrific. Because of his illness, Trev has led a very limited life - he spends most of his days watching the weather channel, and under the watchful eye of the boy's overprotective mother, Benjamin becomes Trev's first real guy friend as they trade bawdy, sophomoric jokes about what they'd like to do to the various female weather ladies. One of their ways of bonding is to plot out oddball tourist attractions - like's the world's deepest pit - on a map.

After Trev's father, who abandoned the family when Trev was a baby, comes on the scene, the only one ready to give him any slack is Benjamin. The father, Bob, pays a fruitless visit to try to make amends to his family, but when he's turned away by his ex-wife and son, he decides to visit all the attractions his son has been mapping. But when Bob, who's comically inept at everything he does, gets into a car accident that leaves him in a leg cast, Benjamin and Trev decide to take a road trip to visit him.

The road trip is fun and full of misadventures, as Benjamin and Trev pick up an oddball cast of characters along the away - including a cute runaway Trev's age, and a young pregnant woman with an ex-con boyfriend , who's convinced he's going to strike it rich with an invention that everyone but him and his girlfriend realize is patently ridiculous.

Both storylines - the road trip and Benjamin's attempts to deal with his tragic past - come to a terrific climax that leaves you feeling the hours you spent reading about Benjamin and Trev's journeys was time very well spent. (less)

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Sep 18, 2012 Ed rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, 3-stars, new-author-to-me, read-on-kindle

I am feeling terribly cranky with my reading of late. Well, first I have to remind myself that 3-stars is not "bad," but still I do not usually get through more than a handful of books without being at least a little wow'd by one of them. I was recently a bit disappointed with the latest Jonathan Tropper book (One Last Thing Before I Go), but as I started The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving I thought that perhaps *this* was the Tropper book I had been hoping for. It is my Jonathan Evison book...more

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Nov 22, 2012 Emily Crowe rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It seems interesting to me that in the last few weeks I've read two books and seen one very fine film about caregivers and their patients. While this book was pretty good and I'm glad I read it, it was the one for which I cared least among the three.

Slight spoiler ahead:

The last 50 pages or so really made the book worthwhile for me--that's where I finally really clicked with the story. The big reveal behind Ben's tragedy, when it finally comes, is almost anticlimactic and not very revealing at...more

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Oct 11, 2012 C rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i-recommend, favorite-fiction

Recommended by Lisa Casper in an Indie Book webinar.

This book gets it right everywhere. Character development, story, imagery, setting, all of it. There's a perfect balance between wit and pain, awkwardness, insight, and growth. One review of Evison's other book said "tragicomic," which fits, I suppose, but I desperately want a better word for it.

The book is an ode to the awkward, painful "trying to make it right" sort of love of the Dad who screwed up and can't win, can't seem to get it right,...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Karen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, bechdel_test_no

I wanted to like this one more than I did. Benjamin Benjamin is a mid-life disaster: jobless, in debt, and with a wife who's desperately trying to get him to sign the divorce paperwork. He's like this because of an accident or oversight that killed both his children several years before. Details hidden for spoiler: (view spoiler)...more I wanted to like this one more than I did. Benjamin Benjamin is a mid-life disaster: jobless, in debt, and with a wife who's desperately trying to get him to sign the divorce paperwork. He's like this because of an accident or oversight that killed both his children several years before. Details hidden for spoiler: (view spoiler)

The children's death is revealed pretty early in the book--but we don't learn all the details until much later. We follow Benjamin through a last-ditch, slightly perverse career shift into a job as a caregiver for a young man with muscular dystrophy. For nine bucks an hour, Benjamin does the heavy lifting for Trev and watches as his condition declines. Eventually they take a road trip together, headed to visit Trev's feckless deadbeat dad. Along the way, Benjamin heals a little bit and manages to do a few things right.

This is a darkly comic book, with a lot of pity and sympathy for its most hopeless, useless, ill-fated characters. Most of them are dads, stumbling around with tartar-sauce-stained shirts after their kids, trying to make amends for the wrongs they admit committing. A lot of people in this book have been dealt bad hands, and are trying to make the best of them. The overall feel is a little bit Charles Portis (American road trip), a little bit John Kennedy Toole (bumbling absurd action sequences,) and a little bit George Saunders (worn-down well-meaning everymen.)

But in the end this one didn't grab me. It felt a bit thin, as if it could have used a little more time for the flavors to marry and set up house. I feel for Benjamin, but he didn't stay with me after I put the book down. And the overall structure of the novel felt loose--there were long sections in which Trev was entirely forgotten, while Benjamin lurched through a series of hijinks with new characters they encountered on the road, and finally found a way to make some kind of peace with his past. A good book, and a quick, light read--but not The Book of the Summer.

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May 30, 2013 Johnny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

Upon realizing that The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving had a series of pre-set questions for book clubs at the back, I expected a sloppy sentimentality and improbable circumstances –possibly even a happy ending. What I found was a handbook on loss, grief, and coping. There may be a tad of forgiveness and redemption that flashes from time to time, but there is no overarching epiphany, there are no easy answers.

“I’ve been thinking about the cruel mathematics of my life, looking at my sums and...more Upon realizing that The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving had a series of pre-set questions for book clubs at the back, I expected a sloppy sentimentality and improbable circumstances –possibly even a happy ending. What I found was a handbook on loss, grief, and coping. There may be a tad of forgiveness and redemption that flashes from time to time, but there is no overarching epiphany, there are no easy answers.

“I’ve been thinking about the cruel mathematics of my life, looking at my sums and wishing I’d shown my work.” (p. 254 in my eBook, using the two-page spread format I prefer as opposed to the one equivalent to the trade paperback—perhaps, p. 142?) That’s a devastating observation from a devastated protagonist/narrator and it resonates with every person who took mathematics prior to the “new math” and feels like the things that have gone wrong in their lives are because they didn’t work hard enough. Even roughly a third of the way into this novel, one isn’t sure how much of the protagonist’s condition is because of the “slacker” lifestyle lived prior to the events of the novel (although short flashback chapters fill in the holes of the character’s past in overlapping, slow exposure excerpts from his memory) or because of some capricious fate or vengeful deity.

And even though one is almost certain that this is going to be one of those tales where the caregiver has care given to him, one senses fairly quickly that there are no easy answers. This is a world where characters have lost spouses, parents, step-parents, children, jobs, and health. This is a world where characters are trying to fill the person-shaped holes in their lives with activity, courage, rage, and stoic fortitude. This is a world where the following is an honest question: “Who wants to live in a world where suffering is the only thing that lasts, a place where every single thing that ever meant the world to you can be stripped away in an instant?” (pp. 423-4, possibly 234?)

As a minister, I can’t help but think of the “God-shaped hole” we speak of. For me, I wished that these characters could have found some of the comfort and strength I’ve experienced with God. But, that is not their experience and part of the value of fiction is being able to move in a skin that’s not yours, to think in a pattern that is not akin to your regular pattern. So, I struggled with the caregiver protagonist and the young patient, a young man with Muscular Dystrophy who has been cheated out of a “normal” adolescence and is likely to have his tenure on earth attenuated by the disease. I looked up fetishes on the online urban dictionary that don’t sound in any way appealing to me. If you know what Alabama Hot Pockets, Dirty Muskies, and Pittsburgh Platters are (to name a few), you can feel sorry for my ignorance and outsider’s disgust in discovering what they were. On the other hand, it seems realistic to think that a person deprived of traditional sexual outlets would mentally push the limits into the most degrading sexual fetishes (pardon the judgmental nature of my observation here, as I am judging the fetish not the fetishist). I understand the references between these two characters as an outlet, a violent verbal flip-off to their condition as abandoned spouse and disabled adolescent—neither ready for a loving relationship but both needing one.

As a reader who has dealt with his share of depression, I identified with the protagonist’s confession about “…those nights when I was courageous enough to stay sober but still too cowardly to end my life decisively,…” (p. 450, or 247). As someone who is inordinately self-centered, I felt a slight catharsis when the protagonist saw someone else’s need and understood why he wasn’t the answer: “She can no longer navigate a world with no signposts, no living landmarks, only colored plastic ruins. She cannot live on a borrowed light that only grows weaker with each passing day, cannot walk among the lengthening shadows of her dead.” (p. 555, or 306?) There is the key as to why so many relationships break up after tragedy.

The joy of this book is that people learn lessons, “grow up” if you will, and are able to cope and move forward. The sorrow of this book is that people may still make bad choices, even when they’re moving on and that they may be stuck in an emotional equilibrium of their own making instead of reaching beyond the envelope of their comfort zones. What can I say? The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving moved me to sentimental, hopeful tears at times and devastated me with existential angst at others. I have to rate this book reasonably high because of the profundity that reeks out on several occasions, but unless one thinks that reading Dostoevsky is a ton of laughs, I don’t recommend it for anyone seeking light reading. I think it would make a marvelous book club book, though.

“I’ll never stop caring. But the thing about caring is, it’s inconvenient. Sometimes you’ve got to give when it makes no sense at all. Sometimes you’ve got to give until it hurts.” (p. 560, or 308?)
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Apr 21, 2013 Judith rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was actually enjoying this book right up to the time of the road trip, which was the whole point of the story. The narrator is a doofus who lost his wife and two children, and is now employed as a care-giver for a teenage boy who is afflicted with MD, Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Benjamin (the narrator) is a good match for Trevor, the boy in his charge. Benjamin is childishly humorous and I couldn't stop picturing him as Seth Rogan. Everything he said sounded like Seth Rogan, which is probably...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Jo Ann Heydron rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another book about deadly serious things delivered in a bittersweet, sometimes even jovial tone. I've been enjoying them for years. Jess Walter sometimes writes this way, John Dufresne, Nick Hornby, Don DeLillo (White Noise--whoa, that was a while ago). Oops, these are all men. I've been pissing people off lately with my generalizations, so I won't risk one here.

Ben, a thirtyish man who has been a stay-at-home dad suddenly finds himself without kids and wife. He's been home long enough that he's...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Melissa Crytzer Fry rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the kind of book I savor: spectacularly descriptive, literary writing; flawed but likeable main character in need of redemption; a story of internal growth; and a cast of truly unique supporting characters. And because I have a soft spot for geology, I found the landscape descriptions completely delicious and filling. I confess: I didn’t want this book to end!

The voice of the main character, Ben Benjamin, swept me away from the start. Something horrible happened to his young family, caus...more This is the kind of book I savor: spectacularly descriptive, literary writing; flawed but likeable main character in need of redemption; a story of internal growth; and a cast of truly unique supporting characters. And because I have a soft spot for geology, I found the landscape descriptions completely delicious and filling. I confess: I didn’t want this book to end!

The voice of the main character, Ben Benjamin, swept me away from the start. Something horrible happened to his young family, causing him to lose nearly everything – and I HAD to continue reading to find out just what those circumstances were. In much the same way, I felt compelled to learn as much as I could about Trev, the young man suffering muscular dystrophy, in Ben’s care. When they begin their ‘adventure’, more poor choices (and some hilarity) ensue. Yes, I had to keep reading.

While this novel was a serious study of the complexity of parent and child relationships, as well as a story of forgiveness – and at its core quite sad – I can’t count the number of laugh-out-loud moments I experienced. Ben and Trev’s clever naming conventions for various extracurricular activities with the opposite sex had me rolling, as did so many of the creative word choices selected by the author. Trevor's sense of humor was brilliantly cast through his frequent one-liners. Another added touch: the duo’s preoccupation with various ridiculous roadside attractions across the US, including double-decker outhouses.

As Ben continues to make poor choices, digging himself a deeper and deeper hole – much like “the world’s largest pit” – the reader can’t help but root for him along the way. This is a story about telling the truth, the consequences it brings, and moving on.

This author is talented, with such a command of the English language – using “the” right words to convey vivid scenes and emotions, all while avoiding overly sentimental conventions. I will definitely be going back to his previous works and consuming them with the same voracious appetite. Highly recommended for folks who appreciate character-driven, emotional literary fiction.
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Jan 27, 2013 Anna Mills rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review is from: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving: A Novel (Hardcover)
I wasn't sure about the title but I loved the cover and another of his books has been on my to-read list. After reading this one, I will definitely be reading the other. It's about a very depressed man that enters into care giving as a last resort after a failed attempt at overcoming personal tragedy. In his care is Trev, a young man in the end stages of a degenerative muscle disease. He has a dream of a road trip th...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Travis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sure, its pretty manipulative stuff, as any the story involving a disabled boy and a developmentally stunted man living under the constant weight of a Traumatic Incident is bound to be--Trev and Ben both have some growing to do when we meet them, and by the time this book is done they'll have done it. Sure, it also follows what seems to be a pretty well-trodden formula (although I can't think of another book quite like it), and the plotting and pacing seems almost sickeningly made for a specific...more

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Dec 08, 2012 Danny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"What benevolent God would conceive of a dynamic where the impulse to nurture repels?"

Ben has had a rough couple of years. He's lost both of his kids. His wife wants a divorce. He's got few marketable job skills. And his neighbor thinks he's poisoning her cat.

When he finally finds work as a caregiver to Trevor, a nineteen-year-old with muscular dystrophy, he knows he needs to keep his professional distance. It's part of his contract, and he needs this job. But Ben is good at caring for people....more

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Dec 03, 2012 Jsavett1 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Call me sentimental but I LOVED this book. Based upon the quickly crumbling life of Humbert Humbert, ooops, I mean the equally curmudgeonly (though much younger) Benjamin Benjamin, the novel becomes part Little Miss Sunshine, part Garden State. Our narrator takes to the road in a Handicapped Van with his "side-kick," Trevor who suffers acutely from Muscular Dystrophy. To Evison's credit, he does not romanticize Trevor's condition nor does he attempt to make his suffering a metaphor for anything...more

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Oct 21, 2012 christa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Prediction: Near the end of 2014 we will see a plucky darkly comedic movie produced about a sadness-stunted 39-year-old former house husband whose children have died under his watch and whose wife has left him in the emotional aftermath and whose softball swing is failing him. With little money and things like Parade Float Painter on his resume, Benjamin Benjamin will take a course in caregiving and immediately land a job working with Trev, a 19-year-old video game aficionado twisted with Duchen...more Prediction: Near the end of 2014 we will see a plucky darkly comedic movie produced about a sadness-stunted 39-year-old former house husband whose children have died under his watch and whose wife has left him in the emotional aftermath and whose softball swing is failing him. With little money and things like Parade Float Painter on his resume, Benjamin Benjamin will take a course in caregiving and immediately land a job working with Trev, a 19-year-old video game aficionado twisted with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

This movie, based on Jonathan Evison’s so-cute novel “The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving” will probably do for soundtracks what “Garden State” did. And, fingers crossed, here’s hoping it gives a young actor with MD the spotlight.

This is one of those novels that plays out in Hipstamatic in your head as you read. Benjamin Benjamin is bumbling along, still second-guessing every second of the day Piper and Jodi died tragically and unwilling to sign the official paperwork and let his wife fly free with her new NPR-loving boyfriend. He struggles at first to find common ground with his employer, but eventually they settle into a routine that includes waffles for breakfast, lots of The Weather Channel and an on-going recitation of funny-named sexual acts, a running gag that sounds like something Chuck Palahniuk would cook up. They also begin a project identifying quirky road-side attractions and color-coding them with push pins on a giant map.

After dissing his deadbeat dad, who flies into town and brings a KFC peace token to his doorstep,Trev decides that maybe he and Ben Benjamin should take a road trip to visit him. The trip introduces them to a handful of quirky characters: Dot, a teenaged punk-ish runaway who forms an immediate rapport with Trev, the super-pregnant Peaches and her good intentioned, bad idea boyfriend Elton and whoever that monster is trailing them in the Skylark.

There are all sorts of little nuggets of funny in a book that could have become really emotionally manipulative. These characters are all total charmers: Ben is such a great portrait of Gen-X as it approaches middle age, right down to the penning of a poem for a near-stranger, a Trapeze Artist he dates for like 30 seconds; Trev, and his foul-mouthed bravado in a world where he’s had limited experiences and is set on a ridged daily schedule; and dear Dot, a bad-ass young woman who immediately forges exactly the kind of friendship Trev needs. Plus, the scenes between Ben and Trev, specifically when Ben is handling duties like wiping and bathing, are very tender and loving. (less)

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Oct 21, 2012 Carol rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Carol by: Robin Beerbower

Shelves: fiction

Thank you, thank you, Robin Beerbower for shouting out this title at the 4th Annual Librarian Shout 'n Share at Bookexpo 2012. I knew the minute I heard Robin pitch The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison that I had to read this book. Robin's shout out was back in June and considering several other GoodReads friends rated it highly,what took me so long? I really don't know but don't make my mistake. Read this book!

Having read Evison's West of Here and liking it, I'm not certain...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Martye Green rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Listen to me: everything you think you know, every relationship you’ve ever taken for granted, every plan or possibility you’ve ever hatched, every conceit or endeavor you’ve ever concocted, can be stripped from you in an instant. Sooner or later, it will happen. So prepare yourself. Be ready not to be ready. Be ready to be brought to your knees and beaten to dust. Because no stable foundation, no act of will, no force of cautious habit will save you from this fact: nothing is indestructible."

T...more

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Aug 27, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebooks

Thirty-nine year old Ben Benjamin was a husband, a father and a stay-at-home dad, before "the disaster" that took the lives of his two young children. Now estranged from his wife, he is unqualified for most jobs, and hasn't even interviewed for a job in eleven years around the time his daughter Piper was born. A broken man, Ben feels like he has very few options when it comes to jobs, so he decides to register for a twenty-eight-hour program called, "The Fundamentals of Caregiving."

His first job...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Liz Russell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I stumbled upon the novel as an advanced reading copy, expecting something that followed the synopsis on the inside page. What I found was something incredibly different. I expected to find a galley, littered with an occasional mistake, a plot line that followed the typical obscure, witty, and charming novel that I typically find myself burying my nose in. (I mean, the main character's name is Benjamin Benjamin who is the caregiver of a teenage boy with MD and an insatiable desire for women...)...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As I read this story, one passage really stood out for me, "Who wants to live in a world where suffering is the only thing that lasts, a place where every single thing that ever meant the world to you can be stripped away in an instant? And it will be stripped way, so don't fool yourself. If you're lucky, your life will erode slowly with the ruinous effects of time or recede like the glaciers that carved this land, and you will be left alone to sift through the detritus. If you are unlucky, your...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Georgette rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: awesome

One of the best books I've read this year!

Benjamin Benjamin(yes, you read the name right)is on the last rung- he's terminally unemployed, being sued for divorce by his estranged wife, debt-ridden and living on one last credit card, restless and bored, struggling with grief over losing his two children(you don't get the full story until the end, and it will make you cry, but believe me when I say it ADDS to the plot). Suddenly, for reasons that aren't quite expressed beyond grief, Ben decides he...more One of the best books I've read this year!

Benjamin Benjamin(yes, you read the name right)is on the last rung- he's terminally unemployed, being sued for divorce by his estranged wife, debt-ridden and living on one last credit card, restless and bored, struggling with grief over losing his two children(you don't get the full story until the end, and it will make you cry, but believe me when I say it ADDS to the plot). Suddenly, for reasons that aren't quite expressed beyond grief, Ben decides he wants to get a job working as a caregiver. He does what he needs to do, and his first interview is as a caregiver for Trevor, a young man with a form of muscular dystrophy. He gets the gig and begins an unusual friendship with Trevor. Trevor and his mom know what happened with Ben's family and how his kids passed on, but don't judge him over it. If anything, Trevor uses this as a chance to heal(at least, that's what I got out of it). This whole premise may sound depressing as fuck, but believe me when I say it's quirky, touching, and downright un-put-downable. I could not put the book down at all- so much so that it only took me 4 hours to read it. Trevor's daily agenda is watching the Weather Channel obsessively, and letting Ben Google unusual places in the US. Ben gets a map and they begin to pin likely places to visit. Of course, Trevor's health is precarious at best, so it's an unlikely dream, but it's an idea that keeps Trevor focused on anything but his deteriorating health, and it helps Ben as a daily function. Trevor is an oddly enduring, extremely realistic and downright blunt at times, but you see him fighting to keep his body and spirit intact while the disease does a number on him. Things get worse for Ben, however, when he continues to refuse to give his wife the divorce. The lady in his building is accusing him of feeding her cat chocolate and leaving cigarette butts in her plants(despite him not smoking). There is a process server staking out his apartment, to a ridiculous extent(That whole scenario is hysterical, when you see how Ben dodges him). Ben talks Trevor's mom into letting him take Trevor on a road trip to see all the sights, and lift his spirits. After much goading, she agrees. Trevor and Ben disembark, and are joined by an unlikely cast of characters- Dot, a runaway who forms an attachment to Trevor, Elton, an unhappy former parolee who's a mad inventor, his fiancee Peaches, who's 8 months pregnant and ready to pop, a mystery man in a brown Buick Skylark(who Ben believes his ex has following them on their trip), and plenty of other supporting characters in various towns. It all ends with many revealations, as well as an awakening for Trevor, and acceptance of what needs to happen for Ben to move on. I can't tell you how funny, downright unpredictable, yet unfailingly realistic and heartwarming book. I can't tell you enough how much you need to read this. (less)

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Dec 21, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ben Benjamin has lost everything - his family, his job, his wife, his children. After a decade of being a house husband he takes a class on the fundamentals of caregiving. He is then given an assignment as caretaker for Trev, a 19 year old young man with Duchennes Muscular Dystrophy. The young man is at the age where he is oppositional, exploring his sexuality, and trying to individuate. The author is able to make poignant things seem funny and sad things become laughable. He has a real knack fo...more

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Jun 07, 2013 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: e-books

What a beautiful story! It's not easy being a dad, and if you have tendencies to be in the vast group of people called "losers," it is even harder. This book makes me love the losers.

Benjamin Benjamin is no longer caring for his children, for reasons that are revealed quickly in the book, although all the details are slowly spun out. Instead, he has taken a low-paying job as a caregiver for a young man with muscular dystrophy.

There is, of course, a quest. Probably an ill-advised one, one that in...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Cynthia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

Get in the Car

Our guy is a loser. No he’s not but Benjamin Benjamin is definitely at a low ebb in his life. After a family tragedy he and his much loved wife break up. He’s been Mr. Mom and hasn’t been in the job market so when it comes time for him to find a job he hurriedly takes a course in home health care which leads him to a job caring for 19 year old Trevor who’s suffering from muscular dystrophy. Ben actually does quite well with his care giving duties. Ben also bonds well with Trevor th...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Larry Hoffer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Even though the title of this book makes it sound like a textbook, Jonathan Evison's new novel is a wry, funny, and (dare I say) heartwarming journey of one man's emotional recovery through the unlikeliest of processes.

To say Benjamin Benjamin's life has fallen apart would be an understatement. A former stay-at-home father, in an instant, he lost everything—his family, his marriage, his home, and his livelihood. After a long period of self-loathing and drinking, with no job prospects on the hori...more Even though the title of this book makes it sound like a textbook, Jonathan Evison's new novel is a wry, funny, and (dare I say) heartwarming journey of one man's emotional recovery through the unlikeliest of processes.

To say Benjamin Benjamin's life has fallen apart would be an understatement. A former stay-at-home father, in an instant, he lost everything—his family, his marriage, his home, and his livelihood. After a long period of self-loathing and drinking, with no job prospects on the horizon, he enrolls in a night course called "The Fundamentals of Caregiving." In the course, he learns how to insert catheters and correctly transfer clients from wheelchair to bed or toilet, he learns about professionalism, and keeping physical and emotional distance between client and provider, and he comes away with a lot of different checklists on how to be a good caregiver.

Yet Ben's first job, caring for 19-year-old Trevor, a rebellious adolescent in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, proves that all of the checklists and procedures don't help you actually deal with your client. Ben and Trevor forge a connection based on routine, ogling at women, watching cable, and dreaming of all of the places they'll never go, but Ben is unprepared for the upheaval in everyone's lives which occurs when Trevor's estranged father tries to visit. All of the emotional distance in the world can't keep Ben from reflecting his own failures in this situation.

While Ben is trying to do right by Trevor, he's also continuing to deal with the after-effects of his own tragedy. His wife is trying to serve him with divorce papers, his neighbors are complaining about him, his always-solid best friend is having his own issues of conscience, and Ben just wants it all to go away. When he and Trevor embark on a roadtrip to visit Trevor's father, all of his crises come to a head as they come into contact with some interesting people along the way.

I really enjoyed the way Evison let this story unfold. I worried it might be a little too wry and sarcastic, but he balanced those qualities nicely with all of the emotional issues the characters dealt with. I also liked that the book didn't end on a maudlin note as I felt it would. While Ben is immensely needy and unstable (and who wouldn't be after what he has been through), through caregiving he starts to find himself again, although he is clearly getting as much care as he's giving.

This is a really enjoyable book populated with characters who are much more complex than you think they are. I'm now intrigued to go back and read some of Evison's earlier books. (less)

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Jul 24, 2012 Lydia Presley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, comedy, 2012, contemporary

With The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving I was treated to a somewhat snarky, somewhat endearing, and fully heart-breaking story as I followed Benjamin Benjamin (yes, you read that right) through the passage of healing from a terrible tragedy.

Benjamin's life is pretty much in shambles, and now he has completed his training to take care of folks in need in their homes - and as a result fortune favors him with a young man with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Their meeting was fortuitous ... for bot...more

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Jun 07, 2013 Jeni Decker rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

You'd think a book about a couple of dead children wouldn't be all that funny. But it is. The voice of the narrator rings true in this book, and just like in real life, you get the funny mixed with the sad, the poignant and the ridiculous.

There are twin timelines here: the current day where we meet and follow Ben, who it would be an understatement to say has had some life setbacks. Basically he's lost everything. Then there's the flashback timeline, which takes its time revealing how he got wher...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Robert Blumenthal rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A book about getting beyond horrible tragedy and finding a way to soldier on. Lead character Benjamin Benjamin, a man in his late thirties, experiences a devastating tragedy that, though pretty apparent early on in the book, is gradually exposed in greater detail, interspersed with him doing a pretty awful job of coping with life in his present day circumstances. He gets a job being primary caregiver to a teenage boy named Trevor with muscular dystrophy, who needs help with feeding and toileting...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a beautiful book to read. The story didn't necessarily blow me away, but was engaging, and I honestly have no clue how the author could write the story if he hadn't lived it in some way, especially as I'm a parent and can only relate because I can imagine what happens as a nightmare...I enjoyed the characters and liked seeing what happened to them, especially toward the end when new characters joined the road trip. The writing was absolutely lovely! Very poetical, the narration, the dia...more

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Oct 30, 2012 Bill Hall rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I enjoyed Jonathan Evison’s bestseller “West of Here,” an account of life on the Washington state peninsula that sprawled across three centuries, so I eagerly picked up the latest from Evison’s pen, “The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving.” Although it is a very different book, I was not disappointed; in fact, I probably enjoyed it even more.

The hero, or perhaps anti-hero of “Caregiving,” is named Benjamin Benjamin (really!). Let’s call him Ben for simplicity’s sake. Ben has enrolled in the cour...more

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About Jonathan Evison

Jonathan Evison is an American writer best known for his debut novel All About Lulu published in 2008, which won critical acclaim, including the Washington State Book Award. In 2009, Evison was awarded a Richard Buckley Fellowship from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. A second novel, West of Here, will be released in February 2011 from Algonquin. Editor Chuck Adams (Water for Elephants, A Rel...more

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“Listen to me: everything you think you know, every relationship you've ever taken for granted, every plan or possibility you've ever hatched, every conceit or endeavor you've ever concocted, can be stripped from you in an instant. Sooner or later, it will happen. So prepare yourself. Be ready not to be ready. Be ready to be brought to your knees and beaten to dust. Because no stable foundation, no act of will, no force of cautious habit will save you from this fact: nothing is indestructible.” — 12 people liked it

“I'll never stop caring. But the thing about caring is, it's inconvenient. Sometimes you've got to give when it makes no sense to at all. Sometimes you've got to give until it hurts.” — 9 people liked it

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