Big Ray's obesity and his mean temper define him, at least to his family. When Big Ray dies, his son Daniel puts his feelings aside, for a while. Years later, Daniel attempts to reckon with the enduring, outsized memory of his father.

In this stunning novel a middle-aged man comes to terms with his father's death - and with his life. Told in five hundred brief entries, the complexity of this searing story moves back and forth between the past and the present, between an abusive childhood and an adult understanding.

Shot through with humour and insight that will resonate with anyone who has a complicated parental relationship, Big Ray is a staggering family story - at once brutal and tender, unusual and unsettling.