Maintenance

By Rob Benvie

It is the summer of 1999, and the Sweltham family leads an ordinary suburban existence. Former high school volleyball champ Parker crisscrosses the continent as a sales rep for DynaFlex Sporting Goods, while his wife Trixie serves as the managing editor of Record of Truth, an unsuccessful genocide studies journal. Their son Owen has just returned from juvenile prison to the vast horrors of high school. Heath, Parker's brother, has vowed to cut down on weed and fried chicken for a regimen of self-improvement. All appears normal.

Yet in this summer's swelter and the rise of Y2K anxiety, grim truths will be revealed. Sprawling yet scalpel-sharp, Maintenance, like some twenty-first-century White Noise, takes the suburbs to a geography you won't recognize.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Coach House Books
• Release date: Dec 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781770562943

Rob Benvie

Rob Benvie was born in Halifax. His years since have been mainly misspent touring and recording with various rock bands (including Thrush Hermit), resulting in debatable commercial and artistic successes. He is the author of the previous novel, Safety of War, and he currently resides in Toronto, where he avoids day jobs by writing, studying and recording weird music for TV and movies.

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