Heft

Morbidly obese, 58-year-old shut-in Arthur Opp's only real contact with the outside world comes through his extended written correspondence with fellow misfit and former student Charlene Turner, 20 years his junior. When Arthur thinks Charlene might come back into his life, he finds the courage to let a cleaning service into his home and slowly befriends 19-year-old maid Yolanda. The novel alternates between the voices of Arthur and Charlene's 18-year-old son, Kel, though the two have never met and are unaware of each other. A popular and athletic teen on the surface, Kel is saddled with responsibility, and his tenuous self-sufficiency begins to crumble under the weight of his mother's descent into illness and alcoholism. At the beginning, all of the characters are alone and apart, burdened by secrets. But over the course of the novel they come to learn that we can build new families when our own don't suffice.