This Is Your Life Harriet Chance Author:Jonathan Evison ?Once again, Jonathan Evison dazzles . . . This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance is as sweet as it is inventive, profound as it is hilarious, unflinching as it is bighearted.? ?Maria Semple, author of Where?d You Go, Bernadette — — With her husband Bernard two years in the grave, seventy-nine-year-old Harriet Chance sets sail on an ill-conceived Ala... more »skan cruise only to discover through a series of revelations 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 midway through the cruise, Harriet is forced to take a long look back, confronting the truth about pivotal events that changed the course of her life.
Jonathan Evison?bestselling author of West of Here, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, and All About Lulu?has crafted a bighearted novel with a supremely 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 Diaz, and Karen Joy
?Evison is a ridiculously gifted storyteller . . . [This is] an irresistible, inventive novel full of important ideas about how we live our lives as parents, children, partners, and human beings.? ?Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins
?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.? ?Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn?s Long Halftime Walk« less