What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
Peter Hedges
£9.99
Mr B's review
Gilbert Grape has a lot going on. He is a grocery store assistant in a small American town, the son of a hugely obese woman, brother to five clashing siblings and lover to a middle-aged married mother-of two. He also has a killer crush on the beautiful mysterious girl who has just arrived in his dwindling hometown. But by far his biggest burden – and his greatest love – is caring for his mentally-disabled brother Arnie: a sweet, fun-loving, obstinate boy, an accidental daredevil, a near constant flight risk and a serial scaler of watertowers.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is the fifth publication from Fox, Finch & Tepper, Mr B’s very own publishing effort. We created Fox, Finch & Tepper in 2014 to rediscover undercelebrated books with a strong sense of place and memorable characters. With his sardonic humour, and his dysfunctional family Gilbert Grape is exactly the kind of character who we think deserves to be discovered by more readers. And if you’ve seen the excellent critically-acclaimed film with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio, we can assure you, the book is even better!
Description
THE BOOK: Gilbert Grape has a lot going on. He is a grocery store assistant, the son of a hugely obese woman, brother to five clashing siblings and lover to a middle-aged married mother-of-two. He also has a killer crush on the beautiful mysterious girl who has just arrived in his dwindling hometown. But by far his biggest burden – and his greatest love – is caring for his mentally-disabled brother Arnie: a sweet, fun-loving, obstinate boy, an accidental daredevil, a near constant flight risk and a serial scaler of water towers.
Told through the eyes of its wryly-humorous hero, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a heartfelt, sardonic story of a dysfunctional family, brotherly love and the desires of a young man stranded by his sense of duty, but dreaming of escape.
“An elegy for those outsiders and misfits who find themselves side-tracked from the American Dream…” – The New York Times
THE AUTHOR: Peter Hedges is an American novelist, playwright, film director and screen-writer. He received an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay About a Boy. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is his debut novel and was turned into a 1993 film starring Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio and Juliette Lewis.
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