The Guncle

I am a little late to The Guncle party (2021) by Steven Rowley, but better late than never, although I do have mixed feelings about it, primarily because of the anti-fat bias throughout.

Patrick, who was an actor in a popular sitcom, lives alone in his Palm Springs house and hasn’t worked for several years. As the book opens, he has to travel back to Connecticut for his sister-in-law, Sara’s funeral.. Sara and Patrick had been best friends in college and afterwards living together in New York, and then Sara fell in love with his brother. They had Maisie, now 11, and then Grant, 6, and then Sara got sick and Patrick didn’t spend enough time with her and now she’s gone.

At her funeral, his brother drops a bombshell, and asks Patrick to take care of Grant and Maisie for the summer. Initially hesitant, he quickly comes around to the idea, and they all travel back to Palm Springs, where hilarity ensues.

But it’s not all funny because all three of them are grieving for Sara, and Patrick is still grieving for his partner, Joe, who was killed in a car crash several years before, and Patrick still hasn’t quite rejoined the land of the living after that. He’s just been existing in his house in Palm Springs. But taking care of children will bring you to the present like nothing else, and Patrick takes his responsibility seriously, though his methods are unconventional, at best–Christmas in July? Brunch and Linner?

He develops a list of “Guncle Rules” to help them through, and in the process, realizes that he has a responsibility to rejoin life as well. I loved how he helped them know their mother in ways they hadn’t before, and kept her memory alive for them.

That being said, because Patrick is an actor, and a gay man, he has bought into, and repeats, much of the unrealistic expectations for bodies that Hollywood has. I didn’t appreciate the anti-fat bias that he used offhandedly, without even seeming to be aware that he did. So be aware of it.

I still thoroughly enjoyed the book, especially how the author dealt with grief–it wasn’t too sad, though–it was intermingled with humor. I loved how he cared for the kids both emotionally and physically, and I loved how he realized he could no longer wallow in his own grief and had to get out and live again. I am very much looking forward to reading the sequel that has recently come out–The Guncle Abroad (May 2024).