God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer by Joseph Earl Thomas is a darkly funny and surprisingly intimate novel that features an honest exploration of class and familial struggles, highlighting at once the beating heart of love that keeps Black America going, and the setbacks imposed upon us. The story is an amalgamation of memory and ongoing difficulties, exploring themes such as masculinity, trauma, and community, defining what it is to be hungry in a world that swears on everything you don’t deserve to be fed.
The story centers on Joseph, an Iraq War veteran, writer, and current ER technician in Philadelphia working an overtime shift. Taking place over the course of one shift at the hospital, Joseph spends the day increasingly hungry, but never able to eat, eagerly awaiting the food his best friend Ray is bringing him.
As the day progresses, Joseph recalls different memories with the patients, and other people in his life. The story told through his memories is not a linear one, often jumping forward or backwards in time as little things trigger Joseph’s thoughts from one place to the next, be it a color, food, or patient. Such memories immerse readers in Joseph’s vibrant inner world and provide a brutal understanding of the traumas and times that have impacted him.
When Joseph takes notice of an older woman in a coma, a frequent patient that has a persistent infatuation with him, he recalls her past flirtations towards him, and the time she threw a fit with other hospital staff when he was not the one to help her. More entwined with his life is his baby-mother Myra, whom Joseph’s mind is drawn to when he notices that she’s texted him. He recalls her attempts to pursue him sexually even after his expressed disinterest.
While his childhood is rarely discussed in depth, there are some references to Joseph’s sexual trauma as a child, at the hands of his mother’s friends. This trauma informs his reactions to certain things in his life, like the victimization of a friend, the assault charges against his own father, and most poignant, him being pressured into sex by Myra.
Joseph openly worries about losing his kids, or being forced to pay more child support if Myra should decide to take him to court over some petty disagreement again. He is under immense pressure, with no clear solution, as he must communicate with Myra to remain in contact with his children. This brings themes of masculinity and community to the surface, as Joseph battles societal pressure to provide regardless of circumstance and relies on other Black fathers to air his frustrations with the faults of family court and manipulative mothers.
Ray, Joseph’s best friend, arrives at the hospital with a bullet wound sustained in a robbery, and Joseph’s food is quickly rendered unimportant despite persisting hunger. Joseph, panicked and unsure of Ray’s chances, begins to recall moments with him during the war, where the two met and bonded over their upbringing as poor Black men from Philly.
Through memories that span years over Joseph’s life, Ray is shown as a true ride or die, stubborn and brutally honest but caring for Joseph on a genuine level. The two even eat the titular Otis Spunkmeyer muffins together when no real food is available.
As the story gets closer to its end, and Joseph’s patients become increasingly more personal, his calm and sensible demeanor weakens, giving way to fury and frustration.
“It doesn’t help that I know so many of these people, either by blood relation or the repeated offenses of being ill, which are really just the repeat offenses of being poor, which is correlated too strongly with being not white, though in this world, in this country, in this neighborhood especially, with being black.”
Then, Joseph’s mother arrives at the hospital—a crack addict who is described as frequently selfish and mean, despite Joseph’s attempts to care for her. This is best exemplified in a rather mundane memory, in which his mother eats most of his food, despite saying she didn’t want anything when he went to the store. He allows her to have most of it without objection, and she doesn’t provide a thank you. This is representative of their relationship throughout the book: Joseph overextending himself for her benefit, and her responding with ungrateful complaints, or silent, unappreciative contentment. Falling into the role of a provider once more, Joseph gets her an abundance of food at the hospital, still failing to satiate his own hunger.
Rather than eat, Joseph uses spare moments to send money to his children and sister, adding more hours onto his shift when he remembers that he still has to pay for the kids’ summer camp.
It’s these details that reveal the heart of the story, and the undying spirit of its main character. Joseph barrels on through each hardship in his life and through each disaster or difficulty faced in the ER, never calling it quits even in situations where anyone might retreat.
You can learn more about Joseph Earl Thomas and his book here.
God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer
Joseph Earl Thomas
Grand Central Publishing
June 18th, 2024
240 pages
Ronan Brinkley is a third-year student at Drexel pursuing a BA in English and a concentration in writing. They enjoy horror movies, and long walks on the beach. In their free time, they like writing poetry, bothering their friends, and critiquing shoddy films. They dream of someday having a mug cabinet.