Oliver Loving, the quirky, smart, awkward, immediately likable 17-year-old main character in Stefan Merrill Block's new novel Oliver Loving, occupies the center of the book like a black hole (kudos to Keith Hayes for his Flatiron Books US cover design showing exactly that), an absence that's also a presence, a ravitational pull so strong it swallows light and bends time. Oliver lives in Bliss, Texas with his father Jed, his mother Eve, and his brother Charlie, and he's making his way through the relatively ordinary life of an optimistic, bookish teenager when everything suddenly changes.