I Didn't Mean to be Kevin: a novel - Tapa blanda

Jackson Jacoby is a motherless twenty-two year old boy with only the support of his crazy ex-military Uncle Marve and a kindred motherless peer named Creg. Creg holds fast to the hope of one day reuniting with his mother while Jackson maintains that his own life is so much better off without all the baggage that comes along with being somebody’s son. After finding a plea in a newspaper from a woman begging her runaway son, Kevin Masons, to return home, Jackson takes the opportunity to prove to Creg that a mother is not necessary to be happy. What begins as a drunken call to the mysterious mother leads to a cross-country pilgrimage to attend the will reading of Kevin’s recently deceased grandfather. Along the way, Jackson spreads tales of his participation in the human appendage trade, the history of his missing ear, and anything else that might validate his life the way he insists that a mother never could. From I Didn't Mean to be Kevin: "My mother kicked me out when I was ten. I slept on couches, benches, in ditches and did everything short of kill house pets in order to eat. My uncle took me in during the worst of it, but because I was alone for most of my life I never had the opportunity to know if what I was doing truly mattered. Validation is a basic need in all of us. If you don’t get it as a kid, you try getting it as a teenager. If you don’t get it as a teenager, you try getting it as a twenty-two year old deformed, vagabond. My uncle says I have ‘nomadic roots’ but that implies roots of some kind. I’ve never had roots. I’ve never had a home life to point me where I needed to go. I’ve never had a destination, until recently.”

Caleb J. Ross has a BA in English Literature and creative writing from Emporia State University. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared widely, both online and in print. He is the author of Charactered Pieces: stories, Stranger Will: a novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin: a novel, Murmurs: Gathered Stories Vol. One, and As a Machine and Parts. He is the creator of The Burning Books Channel (http://www.youtube.com/calebjross), a YouTube channel featuring humorous book reviews, literary skits, writing advice, and rants. He is a contributor to various online blogs and magazines and is the host of the BookTube LIVE Hangout on Google+ which gathers YouTube book personalities for round table discussions on reading. Visit his official page at www.calebjross.com, his YouTube channel at calebjross.com/youtube, his Twitter feed at calebjross.com/twitter, his Facebook at calebjross.com/facebook and his Google+ at calebjross.com/Google.