Elvis Babbitt has a head for the facts: she knows science proves yellow
is the happiest color, she knows a healthy male giraffe weighs about
3,000 pounds, and she knows that the naked mole rat is the longest
living rodent. She knows she should plan to grieve her mother, who has
recently drowned while sleepwalking, for exactly eighteen months. But
there are things Elvis doesn't yet know--like how to keep her sister
Lizzie from poisoning herself while sleep-eating or why her father has
started wearing her mother's silk bathrobe around the house. Elvis
investigates the strange circumstances of her mother's death and finds
comfort, if not answers, in the people (and animals) of Freedom,
Alabama. As hilarious a storyteller as she is heartbreakingly honest,
Elvis is a truly original voice in this exploration of grief, family,
and the endurance of humor after loss.