Everything Matters!: A Novel - Softcover

Currie, Ron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143117513 ISBN 13: 9780143117513

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2010

Synopsis

"Startlingly talented . . . he survives the inevitable, apt comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut and writes in a tenderly mordant voice all his own." -Janet Maslin, The New York Times

In this novel rich in character, Junior Thibodeau grows up in rural Maine in a time of Atari, baseball cards, pop Catholicism, and cocaine. He also knows something no one else knows-neither his exalted parents, nor his baseball-savant brother, nor the love of his life (she doesn't believe him anyway): The world will end when he is thirty-six. While Junior searches for meaning in a doomed world, his loved ones tell an all-American family saga of fathers and sons, blinding romance, lost love, and reconciliation-culminating in one final triumph that reconfigures the universe. A tour de force of storytelling, Everything Matters! is a genre-bending potpourri of alternative history, sci-fi, and the great American tale in the tradition of John Irving and Margaret Atwood.

About this title

Review:

Amazon Best of the Month, June 2009: On the day that Junior Thibodeau is born, he learns the exact moment when the world will end: 36 years, 168 days, 14 hours, and 23 seconds into the future--pretty heavy news for a newborn. Knowledge of the pending apocalypse--revealed by an omniscient, unnamed "we"--colors Junior's existence from day one and leaves him wondering: "Does anything I do matter?" Ron Currie, Jr.'s terrific debut novel unfolds through the funny, poignant, and tragic stories told by Junior and his family, (each of them owning a chapter) including the all-knowing Greek chorus that gently, affectionately nudges Junior toward his destiny. Everything Matters! is one of the most unique novels I've come across this year--unpredictable without being flashy, sweet without being sentimental, thoughtful without being preachy--a fun read that will keep you thinking long after the story is over. --Daphne Durham

About the Author:

Ron Currie is the author of the novels Everything Matters!, Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles, and The One-Eyed Man, and the story collection God Is Dead, which was the winner of the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award. Currie received the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His books have been translated into fifteen languages. He lives in Portland, Maine.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0143117513
• ISBN 13: 9780143117513
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320