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More Than Enough
A powerful debut novel about a month in the life of one American family as they struggle to pull together and break apart in Salt Lake City, Utah
After a gang of neighborhood boys attack Steven and his sister Jenny and dislocate Steven's shoulder, the Parkers live well on the resulting settlement money. Their dream of success seem fulfilled. But their period of high living soon ends, and each family member grasps at what they want most. Jenny, the 14 year-old baby of the family,longs for normalcy, a state she tries to achieve in herMormon friends' religion and life. A stubborn optimist, Steven's father clings to his hopes of success even as his more practical wife tires of his dreams and longs forstability. For Steven, nothing is more important thankeeping his teetering family together.
After a gang of neighborhood boys attack Steven and his sister Jenny and dislocate Steven's shoulder, the Parkers live well on the resulting settlement money. Their dream of success seem fulfilled. But their period of high living soon ends, and each family member grasps at what they want most. Jenny, the 14 year-old baby of the family,longs for normalcy, a state she tries to achieve in herMormon friends' religion and life. A stubborn optimist, Steven's father clings to his hopes of success even as his more practical wife tires of his dreams and longs forstability. For Steven, nothing is more important thankeeping his teetering family together.
195 pages, Paperback
First published August 3, 2002
About the author
John Fulton
4 books2 followersJohn Fulton grew up in Utah and Montana, attended college in Washington State, and lived in Europe for five years, during which time he worked as a chauffeur and a translator. He earned his MFA in fiction writing from the University of Michigan, where he taught creative writing and literature for many years.
He is the author of three books of fiction, Retribution , which won the Southern Review Short Fiction Award in 2001, the novel More Than Enough, which was a Barnes and Noble’s Discover Great New Writers selection, a finalist for the Midland Society of Authors Award, and the Salt Lake City Tribune Best Adult Novel of the West for 2002, and The Animal Girl, a collection of two novellas and three stories, which was a Story Prize Notable Book and shortlisted for numerous prizes, the Paterson Fiction Prize, the Spokane Prize, and the Katherine Ann Porter Prize, among others.
His short fiction has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, cited for distinction in the Best American Short Stories, short-listed for the O. Henry Award, and published in numerous journals, including Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The Southern Review. He has also received grants and fellowships from the New York Writers Institute, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and is a professor in the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
His new collection of short stories, The Flounder, is forthcoming from Blackwater Press in the spring of 2023.
He is the author of three books of fiction, Retribution , which won the Southern Review Short Fiction Award in 2001, the novel More Than Enough, which was a Barnes and Noble’s Discover Great New Writers selection, a finalist for the Midland Society of Authors Award, and the Salt Lake City Tribune Best Adult Novel of the West for 2002, and The Animal Girl, a collection of two novellas and three stories, which was a Story Prize Notable Book and shortlisted for numerous prizes, the Paterson Fiction Prize, the Spokane Prize, and the Katherine Ann Porter Prize, among others.
His short fiction has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, cited for distinction in the Best American Short Stories, short-listed for the O. Henry Award, and published in numerous journals, including Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The Southern Review. He has also received grants and fellowships from the New York Writers Institute, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and is a professor in the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
His new collection of short stories, The Flounder, is forthcoming from Blackwater Press in the spring of 2023.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 31, 2025
Fulton has kept at it, and this early book feels a little overwrought now. Still, the story sticks in my mind, and its view of the family still rings true. Here's a thing I wrote many years ago:
John Fulton is on a roll. Last year, just out of the U-M creative writing program, he published an award-winning book of short stories. He follows that this year with his first novel, More than Enough, a moving tale of a family's breakup, told from the point of view of the teenage son whose life will be utterly changed by his parents' actions.
This short novel confines itself to a few weeks after the Parker family has moved from Idaho to Salt Lake City. The father, Billy, a lovable ne'er-do-well, has decided that he could get a degree in accounting from a community college there, and the family's rise up the socioeconomic ladder could begin. Mary, the mother, gets a job as a nurse's aide in an old folks' home, work that she's decidedly unsuited for but that provides a family income while Billy tries to create a profession for himself. Jenny, the lovely younger child, wants desperately to fit in at her school. And then there is Steven. Not only the new poor kid on the block, but also a sensitive atheist surrounded by Mormons, he is shunned and beaten by his schoolmates.
Just when the Parkers (and the readers) think that things might be looking up, Billy flunks out of community college and Mary decides to leave him for a wealthy and recently divorced lawyer who can give her that fabled "financial security." Steven tries in increasingly desperate and doomed ways to keep his family together.
It's a sad story, and one we've heard before. What's distinctive about this telling is the quality of Steven's perceptions. He sees things with a clarity and edge that recall Salinger's Holden Caulfield. For instance, when his sister starts sounding like the Mormon children she is trying to fit in with, he hears the pious phrase "inherit the Glory." At first Steven teases her, but then he starts thinking:
I had this vision, though it was more of a feeling than something I saw, of what the Glory was. . . . It was a single moment in which I noticed all the red evening light in the room and felt Jenny leaning against me, felt her every breath, and heard a few mindless bird chirps — a black string of Glory sound — coming from some place outside — a treetop, a rain gutter — I would never see. It wasn't that you were going to die and go on living for an eternity after death. It wasn't that at all.
The quality of these perceptions — joined with Fulton's ability to convince us that they belong to his young protagonist — makes this quiet first novel memorable.
https://annarborobserver.com/articles...
John Fulton is on a roll. Last year, just out of the U-M creative writing program, he published an award-winning book of short stories. He follows that this year with his first novel, More than Enough, a moving tale of a family's breakup, told from the point of view of the teenage son whose life will be utterly changed by his parents' actions.
This short novel confines itself to a few weeks after the Parker family has moved from Idaho to Salt Lake City. The father, Billy, a lovable ne'er-do-well, has decided that he could get a degree in accounting from a community college there, and the family's rise up the socioeconomic ladder could begin. Mary, the mother, gets a job as a nurse's aide in an old folks' home, work that she's decidedly unsuited for but that provides a family income while Billy tries to create a profession for himself. Jenny, the lovely younger child, wants desperately to fit in at her school. And then there is Steven. Not only the new poor kid on the block, but also a sensitive atheist surrounded by Mormons, he is shunned and beaten by his schoolmates.
Just when the Parkers (and the readers) think that things might be looking up, Billy flunks out of community college and Mary decides to leave him for a wealthy and recently divorced lawyer who can give her that fabled "financial security." Steven tries in increasingly desperate and doomed ways to keep his family together.
It's a sad story, and one we've heard before. What's distinctive about this telling is the quality of Steven's perceptions. He sees things with a clarity and edge that recall Salinger's Holden Caulfield. For instance, when his sister starts sounding like the Mormon children she is trying to fit in with, he hears the pious phrase "inherit the Glory." At first Steven teases her, but then he starts thinking:
I had this vision, though it was more of a feeling than something I saw, of what the Glory was. . . . It was a single moment in which I noticed all the red evening light in the room and felt Jenny leaning against me, felt her every breath, and heard a few mindless bird chirps — a black string of Glory sound — coming from some place outside — a treetop, a rain gutter — I would never see. It wasn't that you were going to die and go on living for an eternity after death. It wasn't that at all.
The quality of these perceptions — joined with Fulton's ability to convince us that they belong to his young protagonist — makes this quiet first novel memorable.
https://annarborobserver.com/articles...
April 3, 2026
Had potential in the beginning but fizzled out in the middle. Didn't care for the unresolved ending.
April 22, 2013
It was an ok book even though I pretty much despised all the characters and just really wanted to beat the dickens out of them all. The Parker Family is quite the unhappy bunch. You have the parents..The father is a pretty decent guy and probably would be perfect if he could keep his head out of the clouds, keep a decent job, and spend more time in reality. The mother has spent way too much time with this man and his empty promises. Then you have the kids, Stephen, the main character is their 16 year old son. He doesn't have many friends and then you have the daughter, Jenny who is 14 and wants desperatly to be part of any accepting group. The story starts off with the Parkers moving to Salt Lake City, UTah in mormon country. Stephen & Jenny are out walking their dog one afternoon when Stephen gets beaten up and his collarbone broken by a rich mormon kid. Stephen's father manages to wrangle a nice tidy sum from the kids father for medical bills and pain & suffering. It doesn't take long for the family to go through all the money. First they buy things that they really need, then his father starts to go through this money buying crap thatis not needed. One example was when he went to the grocery store and bought all sorts of food that "rich people eat" like caviar etc, but wind up throwing it out because he did not like the taste of it.
So the money disappears at an alaming rate so the mother goes out and gets a job at a nursing home as a nurses assistance. Then this is where the book takes a turn and just really bothers me. All of a sudden the mother meets another man and decides to leave her husband and move in with him and taking the kids with her. Stephen goes off the deep end and causes a bunch of trouble. The other man and his mom won't allow him to live in the big mansion so his father is called and he goes back home with his dad.
The ending was terribly rushed and to me, not very thought out. There is no indication that the mother meets a man where she is working or that they are having a relationship. It just shows up and no background explanation is given except that the man is the son of oneof the residents she takes care of. In addition she just drops it on the kids and expects them to go along with it. I understand her frustration with her husband and the situation, but you can't just drop something on a kid like this and expect them to just ease on into the situation. Of course Stephen has issues and because of this he is banished from the house and back to his father where the story abruptly ends. WTF??
Why I hate everyone in this book except the dog. The father is a loser. A nice guy, but he has about as much ambition as a pet rock. Sorry buddy niceness and dreams don't get you squat. The mom - I felt sorry for her at first having to live with dead beat dipstick, but in the end when she chooses her new beau over her son that just pissed me right the hell off. Stephen - I hate how he makes everything seem so hunky dorry just to keep everyone together. I know the break up of a family is not the best thing in the world, but sometimes you have to weigh the issues and see where you are better off at. The crap he pulls in the end is just way out of hand, but I can understand why he did what he did. I can't say that I, at that age, would not have done it any differently. Jenny - The girl needed to grow some kahonas. Trying to hide behind her little rich cheerleader friends was not going to solve anything. Anyways in the end she choose wealth over love anyways. It's a good read if you don't mind hating all the characters and family dysfunctions are your thing..
So the money disappears at an alaming rate so the mother goes out and gets a job at a nursing home as a nurses assistance. Then this is where the book takes a turn and just really bothers me. All of a sudden the mother meets another man and decides to leave her husband and move in with him and taking the kids with her. Stephen goes off the deep end and causes a bunch of trouble. The other man and his mom won't allow him to live in the big mansion so his father is called and he goes back home with his dad.
The ending was terribly rushed and to me, not very thought out. There is no indication that the mother meets a man where she is working or that they are having a relationship. It just shows up and no background explanation is given except that the man is the son of oneof the residents she takes care of. In addition she just drops it on the kids and expects them to go along with it. I understand her frustration with her husband and the situation, but you can't just drop something on a kid like this and expect them to just ease on into the situation. Of course Stephen has issues and because of this he is banished from the house and back to his father where the story abruptly ends. WTF??
Why I hate everyone in this book except the dog. The father is a loser. A nice guy, but he has about as much ambition as a pet rock. Sorry buddy niceness and dreams don't get you squat. The mom - I felt sorry for her at first having to live with dead beat dipstick, but in the end when she chooses her new beau over her son that just pissed me right the hell off. Stephen - I hate how he makes everything seem so hunky dorry just to keep everyone together. I know the break up of a family is not the best thing in the world, but sometimes you have to weigh the issues and see where you are better off at. The crap he pulls in the end is just way out of hand, but I can understand why he did what he did. I can't say that I, at that age, would not have done it any differently. Jenny - The girl needed to grow some kahonas. Trying to hide behind her little rich cheerleader friends was not going to solve anything. Anyways in the end she choose wealth over love anyways. It's a good read if you don't mind hating all the characters and family dysfunctions are your thing..
October 13, 2008
In an era when American Beauty, Six Feet Under, and Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections have all garnered critical claim, as well as recognition from the general public, it seems more than obvious by now that family dysfunction is not a topic we tire of easily. Our latest invitation comes from debut-novelist John Fulton’s More Than Enough.
Early on, narrator Steven Parker sounds almost-typically fifteen. His family, consisting of mother, father, and younger sister, was seemingly reluctantly uprooted to Salt Lake City, and he can’t help but be bothered by (albeit protective of) them. Within the first few paragraphs, Steven verbalizes his father’s life-is-what-you-make-it philosophy to us, and we know almost instantly that he doesn’t believe it.
Meanwhile, Steven’s father, Billy, is an unemployed, underachieving, self-pitying malcontent. Mother, Mary, is the tie that binds, who works an abhorrent job at a nursing home to keep her family afloat until Billy completes his degree that will earn him his CPA license—evidently, the solution to their financial woes.
It can almost be viewed as a blessing, then, when Steven falls victim to an anti-Catholic bashing by a group of local youths while wandering one day through one of the wealthier residential neighborhoods with his sister, Jenny. When Billy confronts the father of the culprit and threatens to sue, an apparently above-nominal cash offering allows the Parkers to forget the incident.
For a family used to always struggling to make ends meet, Billy adjusts all-too-well to this newfound status, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Steven. Jenny begins to sport a lavish wardrobe, and the food choices that fill the refrigerator are more plentiful than the Parker family is used to. It pleases Steven to see Mary and Billy get along, yet he knows the situation is temporary and potentially destructive.
What separates Steven from the scale model teenager is his inexorable ability to maintain hope. The novel is peppered with the most disastrous of embarrassing incidents—after the bashing, his injured body is turned away by a hospital during a snowstorm because his father lacks insurance; he soils himself when he stumbles upon a corpse at the nursing home where Mary works (and clutches the bag containing his clothes, almost as a token of esteem); Billy embarks on a cab ride to chase after Mary and the children, yet can’t afford the fare when the vehicle finally comes to a stop (where he readily accepts a fifty-dollar-bill from Mary)—and Steven still tries to convince himself throughout that things will get better. Because we learn to take Steven’s incorrigible disposition for granted, Fulton blindsides us when Steven finally does run out of hope, and the result is the polar opposite of what we have come to expect of this character.
Our attraction to families of dysfunction in popular culture clearly stems from our ability to relate. Steven behaves ordinarily all along, yet Fulton has created a character anything but typical—and when he reacts in a ‘typical’ manner, the reader feels just as defeated.
The author’s language and dialogue are (dare I sound cliché) real, not to be confused with simple. I suggest reading slowly and paying close attention to Steven’s words. The novel won’t exactly leave you breathlessly anticipating the outcome, but you may be surprised to learn how troubled minds think alike.
Early on, narrator Steven Parker sounds almost-typically fifteen. His family, consisting of mother, father, and younger sister, was seemingly reluctantly uprooted to Salt Lake City, and he can’t help but be bothered by (albeit protective of) them. Within the first few paragraphs, Steven verbalizes his father’s life-is-what-you-make-it philosophy to us, and we know almost instantly that he doesn’t believe it.
Meanwhile, Steven’s father, Billy, is an unemployed, underachieving, self-pitying malcontent. Mother, Mary, is the tie that binds, who works an abhorrent job at a nursing home to keep her family afloat until Billy completes his degree that will earn him his CPA license—evidently, the solution to their financial woes.
It can almost be viewed as a blessing, then, when Steven falls victim to an anti-Catholic bashing by a group of local youths while wandering one day through one of the wealthier residential neighborhoods with his sister, Jenny. When Billy confronts the father of the culprit and threatens to sue, an apparently above-nominal cash offering allows the Parkers to forget the incident.
For a family used to always struggling to make ends meet, Billy adjusts all-too-well to this newfound status, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Steven. Jenny begins to sport a lavish wardrobe, and the food choices that fill the refrigerator are more plentiful than the Parker family is used to. It pleases Steven to see Mary and Billy get along, yet he knows the situation is temporary and potentially destructive.
What separates Steven from the scale model teenager is his inexorable ability to maintain hope. The novel is peppered with the most disastrous of embarrassing incidents—after the bashing, his injured body is turned away by a hospital during a snowstorm because his father lacks insurance; he soils himself when he stumbles upon a corpse at the nursing home where Mary works (and clutches the bag containing his clothes, almost as a token of esteem); Billy embarks on a cab ride to chase after Mary and the children, yet can’t afford the fare when the vehicle finally comes to a stop (where he readily accepts a fifty-dollar-bill from Mary)—and Steven still tries to convince himself throughout that things will get better. Because we learn to take Steven’s incorrigible disposition for granted, Fulton blindsides us when Steven finally does run out of hope, and the result is the polar opposite of what we have come to expect of this character.
Our attraction to families of dysfunction in popular culture clearly stems from our ability to relate. Steven behaves ordinarily all along, yet Fulton has created a character anything but typical—and when he reacts in a ‘typical’ manner, the reader feels just as defeated.
The author’s language and dialogue are (dare I sound cliché) real, not to be confused with simple. I suggest reading slowly and paying close attention to Steven’s words. The novel won’t exactly leave you breathlessly anticipating the outcome, but you may be surprised to learn how troubled minds think alike.
October 25, 2015
I read to the end which must say something. Oh for a decent editor who could have taken 50 pages of wittering out of this family tale. Not very nice people and all ultimately with little to say but lots of words to say it with over and over and over.
January 15, 2008
Good read. Kind of an abrupt end.
July 8, 2009
The family in this book is a train wreck! I couldn't look away. Block out a chunk of time in your schedule because you're going to want to read this book in one sitting.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews