Big Ray’s temper and obesity define him. When Big Ray dies, his son feels relief and sets his feelings aside, but not forever. Years later, the adult son’s reckoning takes place with the outsized presence of his father’s memory in this stunning novel. Told in over 500 brief entries, the novel moves between past and present, between the 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, beautiful and sickening.