When

Told in an abrasive, uncommon voice, the novel When covers a four day period following the death of a family patriarch, or at the time when his body, as one does when having coffee poured into their cup, said when regarding its stay on earth. Concerned with the minutia of every day life and thinking, When is universal in the themes it touches upon: Vietnam, enemas, Jesus as a black man, pancakes, art, rape, legal drinking, speaking in tongues, Flintstone Vitamins, cinema, abortion, etc. And the main character, as his memory continues to grow stronger with the help of his somewhat disturbed grandmother and the recollections from the weekend spent with his three siblings leading up to their fathers burial, figures out that the little things in life, such as how people react when others say when, are exactly those things which are, without a doubt, the most engaging. Jon Gaskell is twenty-nine years old and lives in Des Moines, Iowa. When is his first novel.