The Weight (Paperback)

Garol Schand's once-promising future as an NFL-bound quarterback was sidelined by an injury. The rest of his life was sidelined by the death of his fiance, alcoholism, anxiety and depression. Despite that backdrop - or maybe because of it - "The Weight" is laugh-out-loud funny. Garol, now 34 years old and a failed furniture salesman, awakens one morning to find himself trapped in a full body cast and, worse, in a bizarre town populated by supportive and unsupportive characters who seem bent on breaking him out of his "shell." Garol's body cast becomes a character in itself and does not, in fact, prevent him from walking, pivoting, dancing, falling in love and even delivering the mail - something he's forced to do to earn his keep in a town he's desperate to leave. Like everything else in this comic purgatory, mail delivery turns out to be a far from normal activity. Through interactions with a kooky psychiatrist, a mysterious chess master (whose ongoing game seems to parallel - or portend -- the moves Garol makes in his life), an inexplicably hostile mail customer and others, Garol is forced to get back in the game and take action - at one point running for Mayor to a well-liked mannequin replica of himself that is preposterously rumored to be his son. Hilarious, imaginative and filled with sly wisdom, "The Weight" is a sophisticated, fantastical fable about one man's journey to redemption and self-acceptance.