Everything: A Novel

In taut, exquisite prose, Kevin Canty explores the largest themes of life€"work, love, death, destruction, rebirth€"in the middle of the everyday.

On the fifth of July, RL and June go down to the river with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red to commemorate Taylor€s fiftieth and last birthday. Taylor was RL€s boyhood friend and June€s husband, but after eleven years, June, a childless hospice worker, finally declares she€s €œnobody€s widow anymore.€ Anxious for a new beginning, June considers selling her beloved house. RL, a divorced  empty-nester, faces a major change, too, when he agrees to lodge his college girlfriend, Betsy, while she undergoes chemotherapy. Caught between Betsy€s anguish and June€s hope, the cynical RL is brought face-to-face with his own sense of futility, and the longing to experience the kind of love that €œknocks you down.€

Set in Montana, reflecting the beauty of its landscape and the independence of its people, Everything is a shimmering novel about unexpected redemption by a writer of deep empathy and prodigious talents.