Ethel Rohan

The Weight of Him Lib/E Ethel Rohan

Four hundred pound Billy Brennan could always count on food to make everything better, until the day his beloved son Michael takes his own life. In Michael's memory, Billy undertakes a public weight-loss campaign to raise money for suicide prevention-his first step in an ambitious plan to save his family, the suicidal, and himself. However, Billy's dramatic crusade appalls his family, who simply want to try to go on, quietly, privately. Despite Billy's crushing detractors, he gains welcome allies, including his community-at-large; a coworker who lost his father to suicide; a filmmaker with his own dubious agenda; and a secret, miniature kingdom that Billy populates with the sub-quality dolls and soldiers he saves from disposal at the toy factory where he works. But it is only if Billy can confront the truth of the suffering and brokenness within and around him that he and others will be able to realize the recovery they need. Told against the picturesque yet haunting backdrop of rural, contemporary Ireland, The Weight of Him is a big-hearted novel about loss and reliance that moves from tragedy to recrimination to what can be achieved when we take the stand of our lives.