The Center of Everything: A Novel - Hardcover
Critics and readers everywhere stood up and took notice when Laura Moriarty's captivating debut novel hit the stores in June '03. Janet Maslin of the New York Times praised The Center of Everything as "warm" and "beguiling." USA Today compared the scrappy yet tender-hearted Evelyn Bucknow to Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. It garnered extensive national attention; from Entertainment Weekly to the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle, the press raved about the wisdom and poignancy of Moriarty's writing. The Book-of-the-Month Club snatched it up as a Main Selection, as did the Literary Guild. It was a USA Today Summer Reading Pick, a BookSense Top 10 Pick, and a BN.com book club feature title. And still, months after The Center of Everything's original publication date, reviews and features of the book continue to run nationwide.
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Review:
Laura Moriarty's debut novel is a simple story, but effectively told. Ten-year-old Evelyn Bucknow lives with her not very responsible young mother, Tina, on the outskirts of a small Kansas town. The Center of Everything follows a clean arc: How Evelyn, a gifted but poor student, negotiates the pitfalls of her background to become a college student. The book shows the scary tenuousness of poverty. When Tina's car breaks down, their life falls apart like a flimsy cardboard edifice. Evelyn can't get to school, Tina can't get to work, and unseemly relationships with men who own cars develop. The novel's other theme is the importance of teaching; when one of her teachers tells her she's gifted, Evelyn's life is changed. "She takes off her glasses, still looking at me. I take off my glasses too, because for a moment I think she is going to place them on my eyes, the way you place a crown on someone's head when they become queen. Welcome to being smart." As she heads into adolescence, Evelyn sees her best friend fall in love and become pregnant, just as Tina did when she was a teenager. Evelyn resists these traps, not without some lovelorn, lonely moments. The Center of Everything careens dangerously near fingerwagging at times, but the book's salvation comes from unexpected quarters: Evelyn's mom Tina. At the outset, she seems beleaguered and lost, but as the book progresses she develops a wry resiliency. We get to watch Evelyn and Tina grow up together, and it's a rare sight. --Claire Dederer
About the Author:
Laura Moriarty received her master's degree from the University of Kansas and was awarded the George Bennett Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy. She is the author of The Center of Everything. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
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- PublisherHachette Books
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 1401300316
- ISBN 13 9781401300319
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages300
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The center of everything
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Book Description hardback. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 291 p. ; 24 cm. Seller Inventory # 1007965
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The Center of Everything
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. First Edition. Signed first edition. New. From the publisher: "Set in Kerrville, Kansas, The Center of Everything is told by Evelyn Bucknow, an endearing character with a wholly refreshing way of looking at the world. Living with her single mother in a small apartment, Evelyn Bucknow is a young girl wincing her way through adolescence. With a voice that is as charming as it is recognizable, Evelyn immerses the reader in the dramas of an entire community. The people of Kerrville, stuck at once in the middle of nowhere but also at the center of everything, are the source from which Moriarty draws on universal dilemmas of love and belief to render a story that grows in emotional intensity until it lifts the reader to heights achieved only by the finest of fiction." About the author, from her own website: Laura Moriarty earned a degree in social work before returning for her M.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Kansas. She was the recipient of the George Bennett Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and is now a professor of Creative Writing at the University of Kansas. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and is at work on her next novel." The Center of Everything is her first novel. Since then she has written The Rest of Her Life (2007), While I'm Falling (2009), The Chaperone (2012), and, most recently the young adult novel American Heart (2018). "The author makes fine use of simple, small-town events, refracting and re-examining them through Evelyn's changing perceptions.a warm, beguiling book full of hard-won wisdom." Janet Maslin, the New York Times, June 30, 2003. ABEDESC The Center of Everything is told through the voice of young Evelyn Bucknow, a young girl who lives with her single mother in a small apartment in the small town of Kerrville, Kansas. But Evelyn doesn't tell her own story so much as she tells the story of Kerrville. Author Laura Moriarty is from Kansas and still lives there. She earned a degree in social work before becoming a writer, and has recently started writing young adult fiction-she knows what she's talking about in The Center of Everything. Janet Maselin, in the New York Times, said of this book when it came out, "The author makes fine use of simple, small-town events, refracting and re-examining them through Evelyn's changing perceptions.a warm, beguiling book full of hard-won wisdom." Our copy is signed and brand new, in pristine condition. Library of Congress description: 291 p.; 24 cm. Printed on alkaline paper. Seller Inventory # 134
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The Center of Everything: A Novel
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. 1st Edition. Signed by Author(s) 1401300316 First Print. First edition. Signed by the author on the title page. NOT inscribed, clipped or otherwise marked. Dust jacket in protective cover and shipped in a box. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 002881
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THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First Edition, First Printing. Author's first novel. New, unread copy, in fine, mylar-protected dust jacket. (Includes publisher's wraparound band with Anna Quindlen quote.) L38. Seller Inventory # 8675
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