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Book Reviewed by:Part dysfunctional love story, part poignant exploration of the mother/daughter relationship, Jonathan Evison has crafted a bighearted novel with an endearing heroine at its center.
With her husband Bernard two years in the grave, seventy-nine-year-old Harriet Chance sets sail on an ill-conceived Alaskan cruise only to discover that she's been living the past sixty years of her life under entirely false pretenses. There, amid the buffets and lounge singers, between the imagined appearance of her late husband and the very real arrival of her estranged daughter, Harriet is forced to take a long look back, confronting the truth about pivotal events that changed the course of her life.
Jonathan Evison has crafted a bighearted novel with an endearing heroine at its center. Through Harriet, he paints a bittersweet portrait of a postmodern everywoman with great warmth, humanity, and humor. Part dysfunctional love story, part poignant exploration of the mother/daughter relationship, nothing is what it seems in this tale of acceptance, reexamination, forgiveness, and, ultimately, healing. It is sure to appeal to admirers of Evison's previous work, as well as fans of such writers as Meg Wolitzer, Junot Díaz, and Karen Joy Fowler.
Harriet Chance is an out-of-the-ordinary but believable protagonist who, like all of us, has a mixture of victories and disappointments behind her. This is a charming novel about learning how to reckon with the past. Parts of the past will always be inescapable, but how it will influence the present and future is still a choice. The sweeping view of the whole of Harriet's life gives us room to ponder how memories and turning points have made us who we are...continued
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(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster).
Along with Queen for a Day and Candid Camera, This Is Your Life was one of the first reality television shows. It aired in the United States from 1952 to 1961, and in the United Kingdom from 1955 until 2003. At least nine other countries adopted the format too. In each episode, the host surprised one audience member – either a celebrity or an unknown – by choosing them to appear onstage, where they would be presented with a run-through of their life story, including the unfortunate events as well as the good ones. The host narrated from a "big blue book" or "big red book" used as a prop, and also interviewed the subject and those friends, family members and colleagues who were able to make guest appearances. Only a few ...
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Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Has all the wonderful snap and sizzle we've come to expect from Jonathan Evison's work, and as much heart as any novel I've read in recent years. [He] packs an entire life--many lives--into this fine book, and does so with the empathy and insight of a writer at the top of his game.
