“Funny, bewitching, observant.”—<i>The Oregonian</i> <br><br>“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!”—<i>The Seattle Times</i> <br><br>“Compelling.”—<i>Seattle Post-Intelligencer</i> <br><br>“Stein handles the many narrative elements deftly.”—<i>Seattle Weekly</i> <br><br>“An engrossing family drama.”—<i>Publishers Weekly</i> <br><br>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. <br><br>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. <br><br>Now, fourteen years later, he experiences unplanned parenthood when he undertakes to raise the resentful teenage son he’s never known. <br><br>Off beat and disarming, <i>How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets</i> portrays a contemporary American family with unfailing honesty.