Big Ray's temper and obesity define him. When Big Ray dies, his son feels mostly relief, dismissing his other emotions. Yet years later, the adult son must reckon with the outsized presence of his father's memory. This stunning novel, narrated in more than five hundred brief entries, moves between past and present, between his father's death and his life, between an abusive childhood and an adult understanding. Shot through with humor and insight that will resonate with anyone who has experienced a complicated parental relationship, Big Ray is a staggering family story-at once brutal and tender, sickening and beautiful.
Read an interview with Kimball about this book HERE.
"'I'm one of the people who survived.' This is what Daniel, the narrator of this book, says about his father's obituary, but after years of abuse under that man's rule, his survival is multidimensional. His story is told in bits and pieces--sometimes in just one sentence, sometimes a couple of paragraphs. These short bites of story telling are packed with emotion and deeply poignant. Kimball infuses so much into his character, it's hard to believe that what he is writing is fiction (he does mention, in an interview, that this book started out as a memoir but he changed it to have more control of the narrative). His words live and breathe, but often took my own breath away. This book is rather raw and completely, as well as exhaustingly, wonderful."
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