An uproarious suburban epic, Flatscreen is the story of one family’s bizarre transformation after a surreal crisis changes their lives forever. Eli, a drug-taking high-school dropout, is not a model son. His infrequent efforts to motivate himself are easily thwarted by ennui, embarrassment, and expectations of failure. Benjy, his older brother, is just the opposite; universally liked, he excels at college and has won the affections of a beautiful girlfriend. Their mother, just divorced, holds court from the family couch with a bottomless glass of Chardonnay eternally in hand. She and Eli are drifting further into isolation, apathy, and financial instability, and it will take something dramatic to pull them together again—something like Kahn, a sadomasochistic cripple and former Hollywood actor who kicks off a speed-fueled sexual circus in the family home they’re being forced to vacate. Kahn’s bombastically awful example starts to exert an irresistible influence over Eli’s life, and as chaos becomes commonplace, the old family dynamic begins to change. Roles will be reversed, reputations resurrected, the police called (many times), and Eli will have to find a redemption he can call his own. Adam Wilson’s debut novel is deeply compelling and irrepressibly hilarious. Flatscreen marks the emergence of an exciting new comic voice in indie literature.