Eat Only When You're Hungry

June 5, 2017
“It felt like a gift, this possibility that GJ was just being an asshole again.” So considers Greg, an overweight, middle-aged, divorced father who has rented an RV and gone off looking for his drug-addict adult son, GJ, or Greg Junior. As he drives from his home in West Virginia to visit GJ’s mother, Marie, in Florida, where his search will begin, Greg knows that GJ might not want to be found. Over the course of his drive, Greg must also confront himself, his failures, his memories, and the indignities of later life. It is in these indignities that Hunter proves herself a particularly adept writer. Greg relishes the comfort offered by the RV’s wide, plush driver’s seat. At the strip club Greg visits on his first night on the road, he lets himself be led off to a side room, as much relieved as disappointed to find $20 in the pocket of his gym shorts instead of the $50 required. Though Greg and Marie have long been separated, he reflects on their early romance with shining tenderness. As the two search in dark alleys and liquor stores for their son, though, it’s clear that the hopefulness of their youth has long since vanished. The novel is satisfying and, despite the straightforwardness of the structure, the prose remains skillful and refreshingly concrete, full of the grease-stained fast food wrappers that litter the floor of Greg’s RV and reflect the particularly sad evidence of what no longer remains.

June 1, 2017
A man goes in search of his addict son only to end up lost in his own relentless crises.Hunter (Ugly Girls, 2014, etc.) focuses on the grotesque and unlovable in this novel that spreads like a wildfire from West Virginia down to the verdant sludge that is Florida. Meet Greg Reinart--retired accountant, compulsive overeater, 58 going on dead (if he doesn't change his diet). His second wife, Deb, is also a retired accountant, but whereas Greg is a slovenly presence in their home, Deb is immaculately manicured, motivated, and somewhat removed, yet in a pleasant way, like a host on an HGTV show, "nothing worrisome; nothing out of place." His son, GJ, a grown man with a harrowing drug addiction, has been missing for three weeks. Because GJ has always "felt as elusive and slippery as his own beating heart," Greg commits to "never, ever stop looking" for his son. And so, with trepidation, Greg embarks on a precipitous search and leaves his safe home in West Virginia to RV it to his spark plug of an ex-wife Marie's Orlando condo. While Hunter's commanding narrative hurtles forward, it also pauses to coast as Greg ruminates on his complicated past, which we come to discover motivates his own morbid obsessions. The reproachful voice of his late mother pervades his consciousness, but often, her character feels archetypal, undermining Hunter's lurid prose with trite remarks such as, "Now it's time for you to be a man and support your family." Tortured by his insatiable hunger--for food, alcohol, belonging, affirmation--Greg has been made to feel inconsequential by time and fatherhood. And it gradually becomes clear that GJ might be better off on his own, outside the vortex of his father's misery. When Marie joins Greg on his futile hunt for redemption, their messy relationship, like an alligator wakened from its slumber, pulls the story toward darker waters. A savage tale of parenthood and squandered hope from an author whose unsparing eye never ceases to subvert the mundane.

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August 1, 2017

Addiction is not an easy topic to describe, but Hunter (Ugly Girls) nails it when she creates Greg, a junk-food junkie, whose adult son GJ has been missing for at least three weeks. GJ has been to drug and alcohol rehab several times but has consistently gone back to using. Greg decides he must find GJ, so he heads for Florida on a trip that takes him to his ex-wife's home, to various bars and strip joints, and even to the home of his estranged father. As he travels south, Greg's memories of his earlier life, his mistakes, his failures, and his few happy moments all come back to him. Nothing that he does, however, helps him find GJ. VERDICT Hunter is a proponent of "flash fiction," and each chapter reads like an example of that genre. As Greg's obsession with his son's whereabouts intensifies, his memories and own personal addictions will jolt readers, who won't be able to put down this grim but compelling tale.--Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017
In her rollicking debut novel Ugly Girls, (2014), Hunter emerged as a witty commentator on lowlifes and white-trash culture. Her follow-up tracks an aging, suburban father seeking his wayward addict son. Over the years, GJ disappeared so routinely, Greg knew his son would eventually return for drug money or a warm bed. But this time, GJ seems gone for good. Since retiring from his accounting job, Greg resolves to find his son, hoping to convince GJ to walk the straight and narrow. Leaving his wife, Deb, and their West Virginia home behind, Greg rents an RV and heads to Florida, where GJ lived with his mother, Marie. The farther Greg travels, the more his search turns inward. He indulges at a dank strip-club diner, visits GJ's dismal stomping grounds, and lies to Deb about the fast food he gobbles down, even as he is ashamed by his weight and drinking problem. Hunter's absurd Floridian landscapes and darkly tender moments are keen and hilarious, exposing the complexities of addiction and an overweight man with a weak heart but unfailing love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)