Next Book Club Meeting:
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
12:00 noon – 2:30 p.m. at both our Kalamazoo and St. Joseph Offices.
This month we will be discussing the book AND watching the MOVIE!*
A light lunch will be provided, please RSVP to let us know you’re coming:
Kalamazoo: Michele (269) 345-1516 x116
St. Joseph: Terezie (269) 982-7761
THE BOOK:
The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving
(By: Johnathan Evison)
For Ben Benjamin, all has been lost–his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. Hoping to find a new direction, he enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving, where he will learn to take care of people with disabilities. He is instructed about professionalism, about how to keep an emotional distance between client and provider, and about the art of inserting catheters while avoiding liability. But when Ben is assigned his first client–a tyrannical nineteen-year-old boy named Trevor, who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy–he soon discovers that the endless service checklists have done nothing to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, sexually frustrated teenager who has an ax to grind with the whole world.
Over time, the relationship between Ben and Trev, which had begun with mutual misgivings, evolves into a close friendship, and the traditional boundaries between patient and caregiver begin to blur. The bond between them strengthens as they embark on a road trip to visit Trev’s ailing father–a journey rerouted by a series of bizarre roadside attractions that propel them into an impulsive adventure disrupted by one birth, two arrests, a freakish dust storm, and a six-hundred-mile cat-and-mouse pursuit by a mysterious brown Buick Skylark. By the end of that journey, Trev has had his first taste of love, and Ben has found a new reason to love life.
Bursting with energy and filled with moments of absolute beauty, this novel ponders life’s terrible surprises as well as what it takes to truly care for another human being.
(Note: film contains strong language.)
Available Formats: This book is available in print, Kindle, audible; Braille and audio formats are available from the Michigan Library for the Blind. Disability Network Southwest Michigan also has print copies available for you to borrow.
[gdlr_button href=”http://www.dnswm.org/wp-content/uploads/161207_RevFundCaregiving1.pdf” target=”_blank” size=”medium” background=”#0079c1″ color=”#ffffff”]Download Flyer[/gdlr_button]
Movie Trailer:
*The movie being shown is captioned and audio-described.
Movie contains strong language.
For the accessibility and well-being of our employees and visitors, Disability Network Southwest Michigan is a fragrance-free office. Please do not wear colognes and perfumes when visiting.
When registering, let us know if you need an accommodation.