A FRACTION OF THE WHOLE

Martin Dean spent much of his childhood in a coma and the rest of his liferefusing to play by the rules, mightily resenting the worship of hisyounger brother, Terry Dean, an outlaw folk hero, and driving hismotherless son, Jasper, crazy. Their roiling life stories take readers toprison, a mental institution, a house inside a labyrinth, and a stripclub. A suggestion box leads to mayhem, a murderer writes a crimehandbook, Jasper tangles with a redhead he calls the Towering Inferno, andToltz salts it all with uproarious ruminations on freedom, the soul, love,death, and the meaning of life. This is one rampaging and irresistibledebut.