The Sleepy Hollow family almanac : a novel

 by Kris D'Agostino. With a sense of humor that suggests Bart Simpson, Calvin Moretti approaches the challenges laid out before him. He's stuck in a job he dislikes. He lives at home with his parents, beef-head brother, and little sister (student-loan payments make it impossible for him to move-out). Not to mention that his father is suffering from cancer, his mother is struggling to keep the house from foreclosure, and his 17-year-old sister just announced that she's pregnant. The best thing he has going for him right now is that one of his friends just had knee surgery, which means he can get a supply of prescription pain-killers to distract himself over the weekend. When things seem as if they couldn't get worse, they do. D'Agostino's tragicomic first novel is an insatiably readable tale of a family held together with duct tape and string. Yet when the going gets tough, Calvin knows how to see the humor in life and pull himself and his family out of an emotionally perilous situation. A memorable debut by a writer who bears watching. --Booklist (Check Catalog)