Reflux

Adam Vitale is an expert in deglutition. It's not a belief, a practice or a theory. It's a succession of muscular contractions that initiate at the lips, progress along the dorsum of the tongue, pass through the fauces and end with the pharynx and soft palette. The layman knows it as 'swallowing.' In his late teens, Adam swallowed his dreams of becoming a famous drummer in lieu of a more practical path. When the girl he loved broke his heart, he swallowed his hurt and anger, and when a long-time acquaintance stepped in four months later and pressured him to get married, he swallowed and said OK. Adam swallowed and pushed forward through two unplanned children, a foreclosure, missed work promotions and a thieving brother. And each day, he swallows down the isolation, contempt and fear he feels at home and at work. All that Adam has swallowed has been festering and fermenting in his gut. But the body is a complex machine with built-in mechanisms for ejecting and eradicating what's not good for it. And one bitter January night, a smashed CD, a humiliated son and an eccentric Detroit rapper will rock the contents of Adam's gut and launch it from his lips, setting him on a path that ultimately transforms everyone in his life. REFLUX is the story of a beaten-down man finding his voice, remembering that which was long forgotten, and finding a way to make it all rhyme.