Loop

A New York Times Notable Book: “Funny, briskly paced . . . heartwarming . . . a wonderful book” from the author of Apologizing to Dogs (The Dallas Morning News).

Lyman, a thirty-year-old orphan, is sipping coffee on the front steps of the trailer he calls home one morning, when a ninety-year-old parrot arrives with a beakful of cryptic sayings—such as “That which hath wings shall tell the matter” —and a mysterious past. Convinced that heeding the bird’s wisdom will lead him to answers about himself he so desperately seeks, Lyman combines his night job as a courtesy patrolman, circling the highway that loops around Fort Worth, with days in the library. Together with Fiona, the loquacious librarian, he traces his adopted pet’s origins, and while what Lyman ultimately discovers may not help him piece together his own past, it paves the way for a future he never imagined.

“Read this book—and feel better while you wait for the world to make sense.” —The New York Times

“Coomer writes so well, with such freshness and authenticity, that we hate to put the book down.” —The Boston Globe

“Joe Coomer is a marvelously creative comic writer: Lyman’s lonely, lively mind, his generous and timid spirit, Fiona’s quirky originality, and, of course, the aged parrot who proudly announces, ‘I’m an eagle,’ takes the reader on an adventurous and all too brief, ride around the Fort Worth loop.” —The Washington Times

“Deliciously quirky and perceptive . . . the denouement both heartens and satisfies.” —Publishers Weekly

“Impossible to resist.” —The New Yorker