pete is a good storyteller with an interesting story to tell but, as the title suggest, there was going to be a whole lot about dishwashing which does start to get a little single-threaded in time. late in the book things were starting to feel a bit like the beavis and butthead movie. but then with less than 75 pages to go i ran into this passage.

the one-room library looked like it had enough books to keep a reader busy for years. But it held no books by Phillip Roth. So I retrieved nine of his paperbacks from Crescent (his van) and donated them to the cause.

this shared adoration of the contemporary story master roth, perked me up enough to bring me across the finish line at a healthy canter.

and as a personal aside, my first ever job was "bustin' suds" as pete would say. it was difficult, foul and arduous work, especially to an uninitiated, soft suburban fifteen year old like me. but that job and similar ones that followed allowed me to be a guy who has never uttered the words, "i don't get paid enough for this job" because i've worked in some horrifically underpaid industries.