The Guncle Abroad

I was very excited to listen to The Guncle Abroad (2024), by Steven Rowley, which was read by the author, as The Guncle had been. I enjoyed it much more than the first book with Patrick, Maisie, and Grant, as Rowley avoided most of the anti-fat bias that had sadly been peppered throughout The Guncle.

It’s been five years since Maisie and Grant’s mother (and Patrick’s beloved Sarah) has died, and their father has met someone new, Livia, the daughter of one of Greg’s wealthy Italian clients. Patrick lives in New York to be close to the kids, and the TV show where he was the lead has wrapped after four seasons. He’s had a wonderful time with Emory, but Patrick can see the writing on the wall as he’s getting closer to (gasp!) fifty, so they’ve called it quits.

Greg and Livia are planning a wedding on Lake Como in Italy, but the kids aren’t thrilled at all. Maisie is 14 and is unhappy about nearly everything, and Grant (minus his lisp) is 11 — still a child, but growing up just the same. Patrick decides to take them on a European tour to teach them about love, to help them accept the wedding, while the kids want to enlist him to use his Guncle powers to stop the wedding! He takes them to Paris, Venice, and Vienna, with adventures as you could expect. He hears about Livia’s sister Palmina–their to-be lesbian aunt, or Launt, which sets up a rivalry that is only in Patrick’s head.

Once they get to the Grand Hotel to prepare for the wedding festivities, it’s as chaotic as you could imagine with these characters, including Clara, Patrick and Greg’s older sister, now divorced, and looking for a rich Italian boyfriend. And the kids don’t understand why Patrick and Emory broke up–what does Patrick know about love anyway? Palmina steals the show–she is as enigmatic as Patrick is dramatic.

I really enjoyed this installment from Rowley and will have to go back and read his pre-Guncle books, including Lily and the Octopus, and The Editor. The only anti-fat bias I recall from the listen was a bit of diet culture at the very end, during the plane ride home, discussing food. Otherwise, I think Rowley did a much better job with The Guncle Abroad at avoiding body descriptions that mention body size in a way that denigrates fatness, than, unfortunately, were present throughout The Guncle. Progress!