A hero suffering through a relatable life problem (divorce, growing up, death, mid-life crisis, etc.) tries to solve it by avoidance instead of tackling it head-on. Like most heroes, they choose the wrong path and ultimately need to learn the hard way, for only the experience can offer a solution. The end point of these stories is acceptance of our humanity.
The 3 elements of a RITES OF PASSAGE story are:
1) A life problem: from puberty to midlife to death—these are the universal passages we all understand.
2) A wrong way to attack the mysterious problem, usually a diversion from confronting the pain.
3) A solution that involves acceptance of a hard truth the hero has been fighting, and the knowledge it’s the hero that must change, not the world around them.
From the Publisher:
Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor
National Bestseller • Wall Street Journal Bestseller • USA Today Bestseller
An NPR Book of the Year
Finalist for the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards
From the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus and The Editor comes a warm and deeply funny novel about a once-famous gay sitcom star whose unexpected family tragedy leaves him with his niece and nephew for the summer.
Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. But in terms of caretaking and relating to two children, no matter how adorable, Patrick is, honestly, overwhelmed.
So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick’s brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of “Guncle Rules” ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled acting career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. Quickly realizing that parenting—even if temporary—isn’t solved with treats and jokes, Patrick’s eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you’re unfailingly human.
With the humor and heart we’ve come to expect from bestselling author Steven Rowley, The Guncle is a moving tribute to the power of love, patience, and family in even the most trying of times.
Some enthusiastic endorsements of the book:
“Wise and hilarious.” – People
“Chronicles grief in a way that offers a lot of comfort to the reader, and while at various points is a definite tearjerker, it often unlocks the humor and joy that can still be found after those we loved are gone. . . . Wistful, warm, and very funny.” – Fodor’s Travel
“A laugh-out-loud heartwarmer.” – Oprah Daily
So with a nod to all the well-deserved praise, let’s dive into the beat sheet, mimosas in hand, just like Patrick would order them (pour in the champagne and merely wave an orange above the glass).
Save the Cat! Beat Sheet Analysis for The Guncle
Opening Image (pp. 1-5)
In a flash forward, unapologetically sarcastic 43-year-old TV actor Patrick O’Hara, an aging sitcom star by Hollywood standards, is attempting to make a video with his niece and nephew about their late mother. Sara had been Patrick’s best friend in college before becoming the wife of Patrick’s brother Greg and, subsequently, mom to 9-year-old Maisie and 6-year-old Grant.
Patrick is trying to teach them a few things, not just about storytelling and his perspective on life, but about the wonderful woman their mom had been.
Set-Up (pp. 7-23)
The Palm Springs setting, located about 100 miles from Los Angeles, is a haven for older celebrities, and Patrick relishes his reclusive and privileged existence there, living off his earnings from nine years on a sitcom. The show made him wealthy and popular, but he took a huge step back from the limelight. After the death of his beloved partner Joe in a car accident several years ago, it’s hard for him to deal now with the passing of his best friend/sister-in-law Sara. He keeps the world at bay, even those family members he loves.
When he flies out to Connecticut for Sara’s funeral, his brother Greg meets him at the airport and confesses to Patrick that he’s been addicted to pain pills since his late wife’s diagnosis three years ago. Greg needs to admit himself to a treatment center right away. He found a rehab place that will take him, and it’s just 10 miles from Patrick’s home in Palm Springs.
Theme Stated (p. 32 & p. 37)
Patrick frequently quotes the famous, but he has a special fondness for Oscar Wilde, and this reference struck a thematic chord for the story. Wilde’s well-known saying on p. 32, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken,” is a line Patrick uses to instruct the children during their initial brunch outing.
But his decision to take the kids for the summer draws resistance from someone currently living and not particularly famous, Patrick’s and Greg’s elder sister Clara. She says on p. 37: “You have this vision, Patrick, of playing some role. Of stepping in like you’re some glamorous Uncle Mame.”
And while Clara might not be right about everything, on this point she hits the mark. Yes, Patrick is dramatic and 100 percent unique, but this isn’t an acting gig. He won’t be able to help the children deal with this tragedy until he can face up to his own losses.
Catalyst (p. 18)
What Greg desperately wants is for Patrick to take the two children back with him to California. Just for the duration of his treatment, Greg explains. Patrick, who has hosted the kids at his house for a week or two in the past, doesn’t expect the length of the rehab program to be 90 days—an entire summer!
Debate (pp. 20-39)
Patrick immediately declines, but his brother pleads with him to reconsider. “Gay Uncle Patrick,” or GUP, as the children call him, treats the little ones to brunch, debating with himself—and even with Maisie and Grant—about all the reasons why this would be a dreadful and ridiculous idea. He is decidedly not a caretaking type. His niece and nephew are smart enough to sense this.
However, at the funeral, his sister Clara’s zeal for taking on the summer babysitting task herself is what finally convinces Patrick to bring the kids home with him after all. Their mom just died, Patrick reasons, and her children should have some fun. He knows how to have fun, right? Plus, they need to be with somebody who loved her, too, and who can share with them stories about Sara in her youth.
Break into Two (p. 42)
Patrick and the children board the cross-country flight from Connecticut to California, breaking away from what had been their ordinary (and mostly separate) worlds and entering what will become their new shared world.
B Story (p. 137)
Patrick’s love life has been an exercise in pain and numbness since Joe’s death. But after meeting Emory at a party that Patrick and the kids throw, a new love story ignites with a very handsome younger man, who’s an actor, too.
Fun and Games (pp. 42-115)
The adventures of GUP and the kids grow even more exciting. There are “Guncle Rules” to explore and explain, and Patrick is intent on finding activities and subjects that might entertain the children during the long, hot summer at his desert home. Will his expensive, high-tech bathroom features be fascinating enough? How about his impressive kitchen, his backyard pool, his neighbors who are intriguingly part of a throuple? He’ll do anything to deflect the pain of their mutual loss.
Cassie, the assistant to his longtime agent, makes a surprise visit, begging him to return to acting. This isn’t something he considers seriously until he begins to realize that children are expensive. He’s going to need more income to help support the lives and education of his beloved nephew and niece. Patrick also admits, if only to himself, that his exodus from the TV-viewing public had been his way of hiding—from love, work, family, art, etc. He plans to reenter acting (and life) in a big way.
Midpoint (pp. 115-117)
Patrick makes a rare visit to his agent’s office in L.A., and promptly fires him. Instead, he’ll only work with his former agent’s assistant, the smart and lovely Cassie. And while most agents are tasked with getting their clients television, movie, and stage roles, Patrick wants Cassie to begin her work for him by helping him find a dog and to assist in planning a star-studded “I’m baaaack!” party at his house.
Bad Guys Close In (pp. 118-219)
Let’s just set the stage for this big party, shall we? The trio now owns a dog named Marlene Dietrich, and she’s running around the house like a third child… or a fourth, if we count Patrick (and we should). Despite the fact that it’s mid-summer in steamy Palm Springs, Patrick, Maisie, and Grant are choosing to throw a Christmas party, complete with a pink Christmas tree, wild outfits, a great deal of free-flowing alcohol from the open bar, rooms packed with A-Listers, and holiday carols being sung at top volume into the wee hours by the exuberant partygoers.
Amidst the melee, Patrick’s sister Clara arrives uninvited, and she’s positively horrified by what she sees. This is, most emphatically, not how young, grieving children should be recovering from their mother’s funeral. She doesn’t believe Patrick should be in charge of them anymore, and she intends to battle him for custody while their dad is in rehab. She’s come with a bad attitude, armed with return plane tickets for herself and the children.
When Patrick fights Clara on taking them back to Connecticut, she has him served with legal papers. He hunts her down and, eventually, discovers the real problem: Clara is getting divorced. Patrick finally understands the source of her fears and her need to tighten her grasp on the kids.
He tries to show his sister that their niece and nephew are working through this difficult time in their own way. Clara doesn’t like seeing the silly videos Patrick made with Maisie and Grant (clips that Maisie herself uploaded to Patrick’s personal YouTube channel, which have already garnered a quarter of a million views and growing!), but Clara isn’t someone who’d ever “understand the bravery of the arts.”
Patrick realizes that these mini “acting” sessions are one form of therapy that he’s capable of helping the kids with while they stay with him. But just when his sister finally relents, withdraws her petition for custody, and goes home, a new disaster strikes: an earthquake. And what’s worse, Grant is hurt.
All Is Lost (p. 219)
Fortunately, Grant’s injuries are relatively minor, but he was hit on the head by a falling object and suffered a concussion that has Patrick and Maisie rushing him to the hospital. Being in a hospital again brings back bad memories. Maisie remembers having to see her mom there. And for Patrick, this situation reminds him of all of the sadness he experienced watching his partner Joe dying.
He just can’t go through this again. The pain of getting close to people he loves, and the potential for losing them, is simply too much.
Dark Night of the Soul (pp. 222-227)
After returning home from the hospital with the kids, Patrick finds and rereads to himself the letter his therapist once instructed him to write to Joe after his passing. So much heartache.
Break into Three (p. 228)
Patrick goes by himself to see his brother at the rehab facility. He’s determined to tell Greg that Maisie and Grant should go back to Connecticut. That, perhaps, their sister Clara was right after all, and the kids would be better off with her for the last few weeks of summer.
Finale (pp. 231-320)
Greg is not convinced this is the right course of action. He had chosen Patrick as his children’s 90-day guardian for a reason. He asks Patrick to please go home and honestly show Maisie and Grant his own grief—for Joe, and for Sara, too—so Patrick can better help them navigate their own loss.
Patrick finally gathers his courage and tells the kids about Joe and his death. It happened before they were born, he explains, so he’s been living with grief for a long time. Maisie asks when it gets easy. Her uncle replies that it never does… but it eventually gets easier. Patrick says wisely, “The pain you feel, the disaster you think is imminent. Those feelings fade. And some days you even miss it. Some days you miss the pain, because you’re afraid. Afraid that as the pain softens, so do memories of the one you lost.”
To help them, he suggests they each write a letter to Sara, the way he’d once written one to Joe. After all these years, he realizes that the act of doing this was a positive step toward his own recovery.
Patrick also enlists his agent Cassie to “gauge interest” in his potential return to acting. He’d specifically like to work back in New York, so he could be closer to his family. While waiting to hear back from her, Emory stops by for a visit on the day Patrick and the children had been celebrating Sara’s birthday (complete with a large cake and many wishes).
Emory manages to fit effortlessly into their family dynamic. He makes Patrick feel genuinely seen.
Soon, however, Greg completes his 3-month stint in rehab and prepares to return to Connecticut with the children. Patrick learns from his brother that it had actually been Sara’s idea for Greg to go to rehab in California after her death… and to have the kids stay with Patrick during that time. He doesn’t know how he’ll deal with the loneliness and silence once Maisie and Grant are absent from his life.
But he gets a surprising call from Cassie. There’s strong interest in Patrick returning to the acting world. The network execs had planned to do a Father Knows Best kind of TV show, but after watching the clips of Patrick and the kids in their summer YouTube videos, they’d love to have him star in a comedic Guncle Knows Best series. The catch? The show would film in Los Angeles, not in New York, as he’d hoped.
Deep in thought about his future, Patrick runs into Emory on the soundstage, and he realizes that the two of them will somehow be able to figure this out. Together.
Final Image (pp. 321-324)
Patrick is getting ready to step onstage. He’s in Connecticut, starring in a live theater production, so he can be close to Maisie and Grant and help with their adjustment to life without their mom. The kids are seated in the audience, as are his siblings Greg and Clara, and Emory, too, who’s flown in for opening night.
Patrick got his agent to delay the start of the TV show for six months, so he could be near his family now and, also, do a little theater out east. He has his sights set on Broadway next. For the second half of the year, however, he’ll work on his new comedy series in California and be with his wonderful new boyfriend Emory. The best of both worlds!
