Everything Happens Today
A Novel
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- $169.00
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- $169.00
Descripción editorial
"A stupendous, thought-provoking, devilishly delicious novel that reads like Zen koan meets Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . . . Highly recommended" (Library Journal, starred review).
Everything Happens Today records a single day in the life of Wes, a seventeen-year-old who attends Manhattan's elite Dalton School and lives in Greenwich Village in a dilapidated town house with his terminally ill mother, distant father, and beloved younger sister. In the course of one day everything will happen to Wes: he will lose his virginity to the wrong girl and break his own heart, try to meet a Monday morning deadline for a paper on War and Peace, and prepare an elaborate supper he hopes will reunite his family. Wes struggles through the day deep in thoughts of sex, love, Beatles lyrics, friendship, God, and French cuisine—a typical teenager with an atypical mind, a memorable young man who comes to the poignant understanding of how fragile but attainable personal happiness can be.
"A deeply compassionate novel by a very fine writer." —Joseph O'Neill, author of Netherland
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Following The Uncertain Hour, Browner's latest tracks the emotional peregrinations of precocious Wes (who describes himself as a "typo" in the world's story) the day after he drunkenly loses his virginity to Lucy, a rumored temptress at the elite private school they attend on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Unfortunately, it wasn't Lucy but Delia, a serene Buddhist senior, for whom Wes had been pining this past year. What about love? Has Wes had it wrong this whole time? As if this weren't enough for a distraught 17-year-old, he must also contend with an as yet unwritten paper on War and Peace; a mother stricken with MS; a deadbeat dad; and a lovable little sister Wes wishes desperately to protect from the cruel world (but doubts he'll be able to). Throughout the day, Wes attempts to make sense of his sexual transformation and is continually thwarted by the unpredictability of the world and its inhabitants. Thankfully, Browner avoids a saccharine resolution, opting instead to let Wes's struggles work as a meditation on life, love, and disappointment. Wes learns to delight in the ambiguities of the world, a place he realizes is far more complicated and beautiful than even Tolstoy's masterpiece could ever convey.
