BED by DAVID WHITEHOUSE

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Faithspage!
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First of all, I PROMISE to have winners chosen for previous books by Wednesday of this week. Thank you for your patience! In the meantime, here's another great book for you to enter to win!

BED

By David Whitehouse 

Here’s a book I have been waiting for a chance to read and I’ve finally found the time to get to it. I’m about half-way through it and it’s mesmerizing! BED is about a boy who becomes a man who decides at the age of twenty-five that the end result of adulthood isn’t worth much so he takes to his bed and stays there. And doesn’t get out. He becomes the fattest man in the world and becomes famous for it.

Malcolm, from what I have read so far, was an odd yet intelligent young boy, but had a penchant for being uncomfortable in his clothing, so he would strip naked at the strangest of places, completely mortifying his parents and younger brother, who is the shy and sweet narrator in the book. As Malcolm grows older and stranger, he becomes more withdrawn. Even so, he finds a girlfriend, Lou, and his younger brother finds that he is drawn to Lou as well. She is kind and compassionate and brings light into the family.

I am finding that in the reading of this book, I am expecting a major surprise ending, not sure if it will be sad or happy, but am definitely positive this is going to be a book that will stay with me for a very long time. It’s one of those books that I had to work up to reading, and I keep thinking about it when I’m not immersed in it.

BED is David Whitehouse’s first novel. It was the inaugural winner of the 'To Hell with Prizes' award in 2010 for best unpublished novel. It is also being adapted for film. 

Here is an official blurb:

Reminiscent of such novels as A Confederacy of Dunces and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Bed is a darkly funny and surprisingly tender debut novel about two brothers, one of whom refuses to leave his bed on his twenty-fifth birthday.

Mal Ede, a child of untamed manners and unbounded curiosity, is the eccentric eldest son of an otherwise typical middle-class family. But as the wonders of childhood fade into the responsibilities of adulthood, Mal’s spirits fade too. On his twenty-fifth birthday, disillusioned, Mal goes to bed—back to his childhood bed—and never emerges again.

Narrated by Mal’s shy, diligent younger brother, BED details Mal’s subsequent extreme and increasingly grotesque transformation: immobility and a gargantuan appetite combine, over the course of two decades, to make him the fattest man in the world. Despite his seclusion and his refusal to explain his motivations, Mal’s condition earns him worldwide notoriety and a cult of followers convinced he is making an important statement about modern life. But Mal’s actions will also change the lives of his haunted parents, his brother and the woman they both love, Lou.

Here is the stunning trailer for the video:

When Mr. MaNiC and I were first married and shopping for a bed, we bought a Queen. My parents told us we were crazy to buy a queen. We were like, “No! We love our queen! We want to be close! We want to cuddle! We LOVE each other!” Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Mr. MaNiC is six-foot-five. I am five-foot-nine but shrinking every day. We have three children. A queen was the stupidest investment we ever made. Well, not really because now our son sleeps on it, but that’s not big enough for him because he is six-foot-two at age 13. 

To win BED, tell me if you sleep in a Twin, Queen, King, Bunk, Blow-Up, Trundle, Couch, Lazy-Boy Chair. Tell me the story of your bed, and you’ll be entered to win this incredible novel by David Whitehouse! 

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Check previous book features to see who the winner is -- that's how you'll find out if you've won or not, and you can still enter if there's not a winner's name posted on the top and highlighted! I usually choose a winner for each book anywhere from 3-7 days after I post a feature!


Thanks for checking out the Fall Fab Giveaway – we’ve got more books coming your way through October. I'll be featuring 2-3 each week. At the end of ALL the individual books featured and given away, one or two lucky winners will win the WHOLE batch of the books.


If you’ve got particular questions on how the Giveaway works, check the ORIGINAL POST HERE, or feel free to email me! Thanks!


Good luck everyone! And I really enjoy your comments too!


Thanks for reading and being a part of this promotion! To find out all the details on how to participate throughout the whole promotion click the previous link!


I also blog at Real Moms Guide if you'd like to read some of my other work.


If you're new here, check out the rules and all the books at in the promotion HERE.

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I'll answer it in the thread, or email me at stephanieelliot@gmail.com. It is always at my discretion to change things up, and because of some regulations, I guess I must say that the books I review are given to me by either the authors or publishers or publicists, and I am never paid for my reviews, and they are my own personal reviews, and you know what, because I'm here telling you this anyway, I will also tell you that I never review a book I don't like, because you know what, why waste my time, life is too short to read a crappy book! There.

iN THiS BeD

In this bed I have lain for almost a decade.

I have not made any babies in it, maybe one, but probably not, as the third child was probably procreated on a family room floor, or a couch, far away from the cries of the smaller children, in a moment of hurriedness where I said, “Strictly clinical! Baby-making sex only!”

This bed has held sick childen.

It has nursed hangovers.

If only I could count the hours in which I have slept.

It has lumps. It is uncomfortable. I wonder if I have spent more hours in it than out of it in the past ten years? Probably so.

Today, we put this bed out to pastures. For a new one.

I wish I wrote this when I first thought of writing this. When I first woke from the bed I was sleeping in, when it was fresh in my mind, what I wanted to say about the bed I had slept in for so long. This companion of mine who will be mine no longer. It departs today. For a new lover comes.

My Westin Heavenly Bed.

Complete with 12-3/4 pillow-top. Oh how I will roll around in it. How I will luxuriate in its pillowiness. Is that even a word? I say it is! I am afraid to share the new bed with my family. I guess I will have to share the new bed with my husband right?

The old bed came along about the same time as my daughter. I spent 11 long overdue pregnant days with Tukey laying in that bed, waiting for something to happen, for a contraction, for water to break, for that baby to come.

Nothing. For 11 days. I lay there. Convinced that baby would never come. I remember the one day I didn’t leave that bed at all except for the one time I went downstairs and ate 3 or 4 Dunkin Donuts, then trudged back up to that horrid (not so horrid back then as it was new) bed, and got in.

I stayed there the whole day. Waiting for a baby to come. I stayed there and read. Probably cried. But mostly waited and slept. Waited for a baby who was 11 days late to get out of my belly.

Then, after that baby came, nine days after, I was back in that bed. Again. Crying. Crying about buildings that had crashed. Airplanes that had shattered the glass and steel, the world, that day. I lay in that same bed again. Crying. Holding that baby. In that bed. Wondering what the purpose would be to ever get out of that bed. Why bring a child into a terrible world like this, I had wondered.

And since then. That bed. That bed has nursed children to health. Has held crying babies. Has cuddled and nurtured and snuggled and tended when nightmares have been so bad there’s just no sense of sending them back to their own rooms now is there? When it makes more sense for someone else, someone much bigger and less scared to go sleep in another bed just this once, because this one tiny little child might just need this comfort tonight.

This bed has done that for these children.

So, while it is lumpy and crappy and there has been nightmares and sleepless nights, there have been memories and a safe haven in that bed that we are sending out.

There have been dreams and chats and laughter. There have been tears and quiet fights and lovemaking, sometimes loud, mostly quiet, oftentimes silly, because it’s us, and we’re silly and we laugh, and this is our life and it’s our bed, and we’ve made it and we’ve lied in it, oh, no we haven’t … we’ve never lied in it, but we have laid in it. We don’t lie in our bed. We tell the truth in our bed.

And, our new bed will arrive today, and I’m going to embrace it like I’ve never embraced a piece of furniture, and I’m going to love it like a dog lover loves a new pet, and I’m going to care for it like a florist cares for its peonies, and I’m going to treat it like I want it to treat me!

With respect and kindness and goodness! No jumping on this new bed please! No wrinkling of the new sheets please! Do not sit on the comforter the wrong way please! Shower before going to bed please!

We will make new plans in this bed; we will continue to raise our family from the foot of this bed. This bed will be the cornerstone to the future of what is to come. Yes, no babies will be made here, but dreams will be hatched.

Oh yes, dreams will be hatched!