The Guncle

Patrick O'Hara used to be a sitcom star. Now he lives alone in Palm Springs, keeping his family and almost everyone else at a distance. His sister in law Sara, once his own closest friend, dies after a long illness. His brother Greg admits to a painkiller addiction and checks into rehab.

Patrick agrees to take their children for the summer. Nine year old Maisie and six year old Grant arrive in the desert barely knowing the uncle they are staying with. Patrick has no parenting experience, so he invents his own rules as he goes: sunscreen every morning, hard questions answered honestly, self pity not allowed.

He is still working through a loss of his own. His boyfriend Joe died in a car crash four years earlier, and Patrick has spent the years since hiding from his family rather than facing it. Looking after two grieving children forces him to stop.

The book moves slowly through one long summer and leans hard on humor, with Patrick's one liners and old Hollywood stories filling long stretches of dialogue. Underneath the jokes it takes grief seriously, and asks less how to get over losing someone than how to keep showing up for whoever is still here.