I Love You, You Me: Being the Complete, Unauthorized, and Frankly Overdue Account of Eleven Weeks Spent Inside a Costume on Mendocino Coast, as Set Down by Man Who Was in It

Delbert Hoke is a classically trained actor who spent eleven years sweating inside "Wubbins," a giant teal public television character. In December 2005, after the show's long cancellation, his car hydroplanes into a redwood ditch on a stormy Mendocino night. He is rescued by Corinna Faye Hobbs, a woman who mistakes his foam-suited lower half for the magical return of her childhood friend. Trapped for eleven weeks in a remote coastal compound called Lunaria, Delbert is cast into an eccentric psychological captivity. Compelled by circumstance and a lifetime of professional compliance, he performs unfilmed "Season 12" scripts on a makeshift barn set, navigating custom-sewn fleece mitts and a woman whose internal world is entirely anchored to a scheduled illusion. Part dark comedy and part profound meditation on grief and emotional labor, the novel explores what happens when the artifice of children's television collides with real human heartbreak.