Allen & Unwin The Weight of Him book Fiction English Paperback 352 pages

How do you carry on, when you lose someone you love? A poignant and moving story about Big Billy Brennan, obese and heartbroken, and his struggle to lose weight while coming to terms with the death of his eldest son.

How do you carry on, when you lose someone you love?Big Billy Brennan has suffered the greatest tragedy a parent can know - he has just lost his son. His family is reeling, and his marriage is a partnership in name alone. Billy is also obese: at nearly 30 stone, he can barely walk down the street without breaking a sweat. In his small Irish town, he can't escape his notoriety. So Billy decides to take on the two things weighing him down - his grief, and his fat - and in doing so he's going to try to stop the terrible plague of suicide that is haunting the youth of Ireland.The Weight of Him is an unforgettable, big-hearted novel about loss and recovery, and what can be achieved when an everyday hero finds the courage to transform his life.

Ethel Rohan is the author of two story collections, Goodnight Nobody and Cut Through the Bone, the former longlisted for The Edge Hill Prize and the latter named a 2010 Notable Story Collection by The Story Prize. Winner of the 2013 Bryan MacMahon Short Story Award, and shortlisted for the CUIRT, Roberts, and Bristol Short Story Prizes, her work has or will appear in The New York Times, World Literature Today, PEN America, Tin House Online, The Irish Times, BREVITY Magazine, and The Rumpus, among many others. She has reviewed books for New York Journal of Books and elsewhere. Raised in Dublin, Ireland, Ethel lives in San Francisco where she is a member of The Writers' Grotto and PEN America.