This Is Your Life Harriet Chance (Evison)

This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! 
Jonathan Evison, 2015
Algonquin Books
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616206017


Summary
With Bernard, her husband of fifty-five years, now in the grave, seventy-eight-year-old Harriet Chance impulsively sets sail on an ill-conceived Alaskan cruise that her late husband had planned.

But what she hoped would be a voyage leading to a new lease on life becomes a surprising and revelatory journey into Harriet’s past.

There, amid the overwhelming buffets and the incessant lounge singers, between the imagined appearances 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. And in the process she discovers that she’s been living the better part of that life under entirely false assumptions.

In This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! Jonathan Evison has crafted a bighearted novel with an endearing heroine at the helm. Through Harriet, he paints a bittersweet portrait of a postmodern everywoman, her story told 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, and forgiveness. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1968
• Where—San Jose, California, USA
• Education—High School
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives on Bainbridge, Washington


Jonathan Evison, an American writer, was born in San Jose, California. In his teens, he was the founding member and frontman of the Seattle punk band March of Crimes, which included future members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. He has lived in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Missoula, Montana—and now lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington with his family.

Over the years, Evison worked as a laborer, a caregiver, a bartender, a telemarketer, a car salesman and a syndicated radio host. In this latter incarnation, he was the writer, producer, and host of the award winning comedy show, Shaken, Not Stirred.

Novels
Evison has published several novels—This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! (2015), The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (2012), West of Here (2011), and All About Lulu (2008). A fifth novel, Mike Munoz Saves the World! The Great American Landscaping Novel, is not yet scheduled for release.

His work, often distinguished by its emotional resonance and offbeat humor; critics have compated him to a variety of authors, most notably J.D. Salinger, Charles Dickens, T.C. Boyle, nd John Irving.

Recognition
His debut novel, All About Lulu won critical acclaim, including the Washington State Book Award, and landed on many year-end "Best of" lists, including Hudson Booksellers, where it enjoyed the added distinction of being the only independent title selected in 2008. L Magazine included All About Lulu in its "Best Books of the Decade."

Evison's second novel, West of Here, became a New York Times bestseller. It won the 2012 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award and the Booklist Editor's Choice Award, and it was named "Book of the Year" by Hudson Booksellers. Editor Chuck Adams (Water for Elephants, A Reliable Wife) called West of Here the best novel he's worked on in over four decades of publishing.

Evison's third novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, also received wide acclaim, earning him his second Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. Janet Maslin of the New York Times called it his "most stealthily powerful novel." A film version, scheduled for release in 2016, stars Paul Rudd.

Extras
He is one of the contributors to the literary website Three Guys One Book and is the executive editor of The Nervous Breakdown, where among other duties, he curates the national book club. He was the first guest on author and podcaster Brad Listi's podcast Other People.

Evison allegedly wrote six unpublished novels before the 2008 publication of All About Lulu, physically burying three of them and purportedly burning all of his rejection letters. He is renowned for his extensive and colorful book touring, and his love of beer.

In 2009 and 2011 he was nominated by the American Book Association as Most Engaging Author. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/29/2015.)

Book Reviews
The one constant in This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! is Evison's brutal honesty…. Evison resists every neat resolution, every unearned epiphany. As fanciful as his prose can be…he's not afraid to depict the dark side of aging as it is, and not as we wish it were…. [This] is a book that speaks to all of us, whether we're young enough to check Facebook 50 times a day, or old enough to have only a vague idea what the Internet is. The themes Evison presents—disappointment, delusion, redemption—are universal, and he deals with them beautifully in this wonderful novel…. The truth is sometimes hard to accept, but we have no choice but to do so. This is your life, Harriet Chance, but it's ours, too.
Michael Schaub - New York Times Book Review


Evison’s open-hearted, effervescent fourth novel...is structured as “an unsentimental accounting” of Harriet’s highs and lows.... This reader personally overdosed on adorable spirits after “It’s a Wonderful Life,”..., but Evison handles the jaunty tone with aplomb.
That lightness of touch is both a strength and a weakness.
Lisa Zeidner - Washington Post


Evison’s rollicking novel is a close-up up of the life of 78-year-old Harriet Chance, whose Alaskan cruise highlights include indulging in endless seafood buffets, acquiring touristy tribal knickknackery, and discovering the secret of her deceased husband’s decades-long affair with her best friend.
Oprah Magazine


Slowly, and with admirable, dark precision, Evison lays Harriet bare. The lies, the dodges, the secrets and frustrated desires. This is where the voice serves him. With a touch of snark and a lashing of perfectly affected irony, he flenses her to the bone and, somehow, seems kind in doing it. Comforting, even. That huckster's sing-song dripping with love, forgiveness and understanding—all of which have been in short supply during Harriet’s life.... It is Evison’s timing—the slow burn and perfect pacing of the reveals—that makes This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! hang together. He understands that, ultimately, every game show host stands as straight man to the goofy humanity of the regular folk sharing his stage. And with Harriet Chance—poor, frustrated, flummoxed Harriet—Evison has found his ideal foil.
NPR Books


Evison’s voice is buoyant and cheeky as he unveils the deep traumas that form Harriet’s sense of herself, but there are missteps.... Still, Evison succeeds in crafting a believable and gut-wrenching story, particularly Harriet’s relationship with her daughter.
Publishers Weekly


[S]mart readers will want to take this Alaskan cruise [Evison has] booked for widowed 79-year-old Harriet Chance, who suddenly realizes that her whole life has been based on a lie.
Library Journal


Both uplifting and melancholy, funny and thought-provoking, this entertaining read speaks directly to the importance of acceptance and healing.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Insightful, richly entertaining look at a woman who, very late in the game, finds that life remains full of surprises.... Evison writes humanely and with good humor of his characters, who, like the rest of us, muddle through, too often without giving ourselves much of a break. A lovely, forgiving character study that's a pleasure to read.
Kirkus Reviews

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