Synopses & Reviews
"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.
Review
"In this radical reimagining of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, Junior tells his own story, while in alternating chapters his wildly dysfunctional family and friends provide commentary." Library Journal
Review
"Above all Everything Matters! radiates writerly confidence. The excitement that drives the reader from page to page is not about the characters. It's about seeing what Mr. Currie will try next." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Review
"The apocalypse, provocatively envisioned with wild invention and irreverent wit." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Like Kurt Vonnegut, Currie understands that...humor is a more powerful salt than screed." San Francisco Chronicle
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
Look for Ron Currie's new novel, The One-Eyed Man, coming in March 2017
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.
Synopsis
In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophesy: a comet will obliterate life on Earth in 36 years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: "Does anything I do matter?"
About the Author
Ron Currie, Jr. is the winner of the 2009 Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the New York Public Library Young Lions Award for his debut collection, God Is Dead. He lives in Waterville, Maine.