The Center of Everything: A Novel

In this compelling family drama set against the dangerous beauty of the Yellowstone, Polly is still trying to get her life back on track after a recent accident, not always trusting reality.

For Polly, the town of Livingston, Montana, is a land charmed by natural beauty and a close network of family extending back generations. But a recent head injury has scattered her perception of the present, surfacing events from thirty years ago and half a country away. As Polly's relatives arrive for a family reunion during the Fourth of July holiday, a beloved friend goes missing on the Yellowstone River, dredging up difficult memories for a family well acquainted with tragedy.

A generational saga from the award-winning author of The Widow Nash, The Center of Everything offers a stunning and heartfelt examination of the deep bonds of family and how the ones we love-and the secrets we keep-echo throughout our lives.

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The Center of Everything: A Novel

In this compelling family drama set against the dangerous beauty of the Yellowstone, Polly is still trying to get her life back on track after a recent accident, not always trusting reality.

For Polly, the town of Livingston, Montana, is a land charmed by natural beauty and a close network of family extending back generations. But a recent head injury has scattered her perception of the present, surfacing events from thirty years ago and half a country away. As Polly's relatives arrive for a family reunion during the Fourth of July holiday, a beloved friend goes missing on the Yellowstone River, dredging up difficult memories for a family well acquainted with tragedy.

A generational saga from the award-winning author of The Widow Nash, The Center of Everything offers a stunning and heartfelt examination of the deep bonds of family and how the ones we love-and the secrets we keep-echo throughout our lives.

19.95 In Stock
The Center of Everything: A Novel

The Center of Everything: A Novel

by Jamie Harrison

Narrated by Jane Oppenheimer

Unabridged — 9 hours, 56 minutes

The Center of Everything: A Novel

The Center of Everything: A Novel

by Jamie Harrison

Narrated by Jane Oppenheimer

Unabridged — 9 hours, 56 minutes

Audiobook (Digital)

$19.95
(Not eligible for purchase using B&N Audiobooks Subscription credits)

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Overview

In this compelling family drama set against the dangerous beauty of the Yellowstone, Polly is still trying to get her life back on track after a recent accident, not always trusting reality.

For Polly, the town of Livingston, Montana, is a land charmed by natural beauty and a close network of family extending back generations. But a recent head injury has scattered her perception of the present, surfacing events from thirty years ago and half a country away. As Polly's relatives arrive for a family reunion during the Fourth of July holiday, a beloved friend goes missing on the Yellowstone River, dredging up difficult memories for a family well acquainted with tragedy.

A generational saga from the award-winning author of The Widow Nash, The Center of Everything offers a stunning and heartfelt examination of the deep bonds of family and how the ones we love-and the secrets we keep-echo throughout our lives.


Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"It's so character driven and you really feel as though it's not a made up story, that these are real people, and that you are getting a glimpse into their lives." —Nancy Pearl

"This gorgeous novel is well worth your time." —People

"A meticulously crafted, graceful novel." —O, the Oprah Magazine 

"[A] wonderful cast of interesting characters . . . And it is really the way Polly thinks—about her children and her childhood, her memories and imaginings, her immediate circumstances and her place in the world, even the toothsome dishes she prepares (with occasional lapses lately)—that makes this book so engaging . . . Carrying us along, Polly conjures a richly textured, often lovely life of everyday loss and longing and endless speculation, where 'everything goes missing but everything lives on, at least for a while, in the small kingdom of your head.' Indeed, Harrison’s novel takes the unreliable narrator to a whole new place: in short, to the center of everything." —Ellen Akins, The Washington Post

"Searching for a first book club book of 2021? Look no further . . . Weaving together the past and the present, The Center of Everything examines the memories and touchstones that make up a life, and what we we all endure along the way." —Sarah Stiefvater, PureWow

"Gorgeous . . . Harrison’s writing is as lush as the landscapes themselves . . . Harrison’s writing shimmers like light-sparkled water, and it’s full of lush sensory details." —Caroline Leavitt, San Francisco Chronicle

"One of those works that ages well, that offers up new surprises with each subsequent reading. There’s an almost unimaginable sweetness as well as a sense of longing suffusing this new novel . . . A rarity." —Steve Whitton, The Anniston Star

"Wise and warmhearted . . . In The Center of Everything, Jamie Harrison has created a world so total, so real, so personal, that the reader, on finishing it, is missing it already." —Sarah Shoemaker, Washington Independent Review of Books

"Despite various mysteries and suspicious deaths in this story about a Montana woman uncovering secrets past and present, Harrison wisely concentrates less on plot twists than on exploring the trickiness of memory where love and family are concerned . . . Through small moments, particularly shared meals and drinks, the reader becomes intimately involved in Polly's inner life and falls in love with a vividly portrayed Montana devoid of Western clichés. A sharply intelligent, warmhearted embrace of human imperfection—the kind of book that invites a second reading." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Brilliant . . . Harrison plumbs complex family relationships and sheds insight on the power of memories and how they shape her characters. Harrison shines with passages of vivid imagery as Polly gains an added dimension of perception from looking at art and photographs. Readers will find themselves wishing this won’t end." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Lyrical, profound . . . Recommended for book clubs and fans of complex, literary fiction." —Booklist

"In this exquisitely nuanced, beautifully constructed novel, Harrison draws the reader into young Polly’s filtered understanding of her world, rich with happily married couples, vs. the uncertain reality of the adult Polly, coping with memory loss while slowly untangling shocking family secrets. A magnificent gem." —Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2020-03-15
Despite various mysteries and suspicious deaths in this story about a Montana woman uncovering secrets past and present, Harrison wisely concentrates less on plot twists than on exploring the trickiness of memory where love and family are concerned.

Over the course of a week in the summer of 2002, 42-year-old Polly, a married mother of two and sometime editor who helps her husband run his restaurant in Livingston, Montana, finds herself coping with several crises at once. Since a recent bicycle accident, Polly has struggled with memory problems, remembering too much as well as too little. As she prepares for a large family reunion to celebrate her great aunt Maude’s 90th birthday, disjointed images of the past haunt her, and arguments with her mother, Jane—a highly successful historian who's written about "the eternal nature of stories"—about whether some of Polly’s memories may be false, have exacerbated her fear of losing her mind. Meanwhile, her children’s babysitter, Ariel, is missing and presumed drowned after a kayaking mishap. The tragedy involves Polly and the tight-knit Livingston community first in a search for Ariel, then in mourning, then in uncomfortable suspicions surrounding Ariel’s kayaking companion and apparent boyfriend. Polly’s emotional turmoil is the center of the novel as she fixates not only on Ariel’s death, but also on what exactly happened in 1968, "when her world blew up.” Another layer of understanding comes in chapters in which the 1968 events, extremes of joy and tragedy, are seen through Polly’s limited 7-year-old perspective. The result is a kaleidoscope of facts and recollections that reveal emotional as well as factual truth only in tantalizing fragments. Some mysteries remain unsolved; others Polly solves, sometimes to her dismay. Through small moments, particularly shared meals and drinks, the reader becomes intimately involved in Polly’s inner life and falls in love with a vividly portrayed Montana devoid of Western clichés.

A sharply intelligent, warmhearted embrace of human imperfection—the kind of book that invites a second reading.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940177287898
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date: 01/12/2021
Edition description: Unabridged
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