Lawn Boy

Mike Muñoz aspires, sort of, to write the Great American Novel, or, more specifically, the Great American Landscaping Novel, but Johnny Evison might have written it for him. Mike is 22, mowing lawns, living with his mom on the Suquamish reservation, and knocking around the bottom of the working class, deciding every day whether his honor is worth the couple of bucks it's going for. Talented and sweet, optimistic but easily discouraged, he makes his way through the unforgiving world of modern semirural capitalism in a way that reminded me of another recent book I loved, Willy Vlautin's Don't Skip Out on Me, but with a goofy heart and subtly analytical eye all of its own.