Life Among Giants

“Consistently surprising and truly entertaining. . . .Part thriller, part family drama, Life Among Giants is deliciously strange and deeply affecting.” ―The Boston Globe

This funny, exuberant novel captures the reader with the grand sweep of seven-foot-tall David “Lizard” Hochmeyer’s larger-than-life quest to unravel the mystery surrounding his parents’ deaths. It’s a journey laden with pro football stars, a master chef and his beautiful transvestite lover, a world-famous ballerina and her English rocker husband, and a sister who’s as brilliant as she is unstable. A wildly entertaining, plot-twisting novel of murder, seduction, and revenge — rich in incident, expansive in character, and lavish in setting — Life Among Giants is an exhilarating adventure.

“Hilarious and heartbreaking, wild and wise, Bill Roorbach’s Life Among Giants, which is earning comparisons to The World According to Garp, is a vivid chronicle of a life lived large.” ―Parade

“A larger-than-life production. Yet all of its wild characters feel genuine, their aches and flaws and desires wholly organic; and the plot they’re tangled in moves forward at a breakneck pace. It’s a dizzy romp. . . . Which isn’t to say there isn’t real meat here. Roorbach doesn’t let the novel’s rich entertainment stand in the way of emotional subtlety.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“A bighearted, big-boned story. . . .Life Among Giants reads like something written by a kinder, gentler John Irving. . . .Roorbach is a humane and entertaining storyteller with a smooth, graceful style.” ―The Washington Post

“A bravura performance.” ―Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls

“Bill Roorbach is a writer with enormous vision and an even more enormous heart.” ―Ann Hood, author of The Red Thread