Funny, bewitching, observant. -The Oregonian

Hits all the frets of a powerful story- sharp-witted dialogue, vivid characters, insight into medical challenges and prose that snaps like well-placed plucks of guitar strings… . I hold up my lighter and turn it full-flame for Garth Stein’s latest work. Encore! -The Seattle Times

Compelling. -Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Stein handles the many narrative elements deftly. -Seattle Weekly

An engrossing family drama. -Publishers Weekly

Evan had a hit single, but that was ten years ago. Thirty-one now, he’s drifting, playing in a local band and teaching middle-aged men to coax music from an electric guitar.

Beset at a young age with a life-threatening form of epilepsy, he’s kept his condition a secret. But his deepest secret is that he got his high school sweetheart pregnant. Then her conservative parents whisked her out of Seattle and out of Evan’s life.

Now, fourteen years later, he experiences unplanned parenthood when he undertakes to raise the resentful teenage son he’s never known.

Off beat and disarming, How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets portrays a contemporary American family with unfailing honesty.