The Center of Everything

by Jamie Harrison

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.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Adult, Contemporary

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 12, 2021

About the author

Jamie Harrison is the author of six novels: The Center of Everything (January 2021, Counterpoint), The Widow Nash (2017), and the four Jules Clement/Blue Deer mysteries, slated to be reissued soon by Counterpoint Press: The Edge of the Crazies, Going Local, An Unfortunate Prairie Occurrence, and Blue Deer Thaw. She was awarded the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Book Award for The Widow Nash, and was a finalist for the High Plains Book Award.

The Center of Everything (2021) was a January pick by Oprah Magazine, People Magazine, and Indie Next, with a Rave status at Book Marks: https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/the...

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good mothers were rarities, the center of everything.

Sometimes the beauty of the written word can make you stop, pause, sigh deeply, and appreciate the moment. I am fortunate to have been able to read and report on many top tier works of fiction. It remains a singular joy to come across written passages that bring me near to tears with their sheer power and beauty. Here is the beginning of the novel, the beginning of what brought on my overwrought response:

When Polly was a child, and thought like a child, the world was a fluid place. People came and went and never looked the same from month to month, or year to year. They shifted bodies and voices—a family friend shaved a beard, a great-aunt shriveled into illness, a doctor grew taller—and it would take time to find them, to recognize them. Polly studied faces, she wondered, she undid the disguise. But sometimes people she loved disappeared entirely, curling off like smoke. Her father, Merle, told her that her mind was like a forest, and the trees inside were her people, each leaf or needle a memory. Her mother, Jane, said that memories were the way a person tried to turn a life into a story, and Papa, Polly’s great-grandfather, said that there was a story about everything. He would tell them something long and strange to explain the existence of tigers or caves or trees, but then he’d say, Well, the Greeks said the same thing, or the Finns; the Athabascans, the Etruscans, the Utes, Days were an Aztec snake swallowing its tail, water came from a Celtic goddess’s eyes, thunder was a deadly fart from a Bantu in the sky.

See what I mean? The issues noted in the passage presage the stories and memory issues to come. The way a child thinks? Check. People looking different from one time to another? Check. Needing time to recognize faces beneath disguises? Check. People disappearing? Sadly, check. Memory as a way of turning lived experience into story? Check. Cultures, and people coming up with tales to explain observed events? Check.


Jamie Harrison - image from her site

We meet Polly Berrigan (nee Schuster) as an adult, 42, having recently suffered a serious injury, hit by a car while bike-riding. She has a considerable scar on her skull from the needed repairs. The damage to her brain has left her something other than what she had been up until then. She has become forgetful, can drift off sometimes while with other people, but mostly she now has issues with memory. With her great-aunt Maude coming to town to celebrate her 90th birthday, there is a flurry of preparations (stories told, photographs and artifacts of earlier times unearthed) that summon memories for Polly. But can she rely on those recollections? What we have here is an unwillingly unreliable narrator.

The novel is told in (mostly) two times, the present (2002) in Montana, and 1968, when Polly was eight years old and her family lived on Long Island, with dramatic events in 1968 leading up to what she calls “The End of the World” and “The Beginning of the World,” in that order. The 2002 world is ordered by Maude’s arrival, but also by an alarming event.

Water here is less the usual symbol of rebirth than of death. Two boating incidents a lifetime apart. Were they accidents, or something else? This being Montana, a river runs through the story. Ariel, a young woman the Schusters had hired as a sitter for their two children, has gone missing, kayaking on the Yellowstone River too early in the season, (The Yellowstone runs rough this time of year. Someone dying on the river was not unusual. It was easier when it was a tourist, but far too often it was a local, like Ariel.) she has vanished. Her riverine companion, Graham, a person of questionable character and veracity, survived. He is widely suspected of having a hand in Ariel’s fate, whatever that turns out to be. Was she the victim of simple misfortune, or something worse? Where is she? What about the man Polly had found dead on the beach back in 1968? What was the deal with that? There are other incidents involving water, including a woman who drowns, trapped underwater after an accident, a plane crashing into a lake, another body found on a beach, and a woman attempts suicide by walking into the sea.

Polly’s great-grandmother Dee told her once that there were three kinds of dreams—not the passing filaments, the sorted trash from the day, but the ones that came back, over and over—about three kinds of things: wishes or desires, loss or being lost, and fear. All her life, Polly thought these categories felt true, and lately, they came to her in combination.

What are memories, but the distilled media and emotional resonance of events we have experienced? Yet, our abilities as children to understand what those events are, or mean is far from complete, our ability to form coherent, accurate recollections remains incomplete. Thus, magical thinking. Three-year-old Polly believed that when people died they went somewhere else, disguised. So, when Jane and Merle moved to NYC she thought they were looking for her late grandfather and aunt. Four-year-old Helen, Polly’s daughter in 2002, looks under rocks for the missing Ariel, fearing she may have melted. Seven and eight-year-old Polly tries to make some sense of the bodies found on Long Island beaches in successive summers. Then tries to remember, from adulthood, with a damaged brain, what it was that had actually happened.

There are plenty of identifiable links to the author’s life. Here are a few. Living in Montana is the most obvious. But other residences noted in the novel reflect Harrison’s experience as well. Her parents lived in Long Island when she was small, as did Polly’s. Both Harrison and her husband, and Polly and Ned moved from New York to Montana. When Harrison moved, she and her husband lived with well-known painter and writer, Russell Chatham, thus, perhaps a bit of inspiration for the painter character, Rita. Although, I expect her exposure to Chatham was a lot l less dramatic than Polly’s is to Rita. Born in the same year as Polly, Harrison grew up in an accomplished, artistic family. Her father, Jim Harrison, was the author of Legends of the Fall, among other works. A-list writers were part of her growing up experience. Papa reflects this, renowned for his study of story and culture, a Joseph Campbell sort. Livingston, MT, where Harrison lives, is, notoriously, home, at least part-time, to a host of Hollywood A-listers. Notorious because the wealthy Californians did an excellent job of bidding up the price of local land and housing, to the point that many locals who might want to stick around have been priced out. The western invaders are represented, at least somewhat, by Drake Aasgard, an actor of note, who employs Polly to screen scripts for him.

Those good mothers, noted in the quote at the top, and the title of the book, are far from ubiquitous, and so, are special when they turn up. But it seemed to me that the title could, as easily, be referring to family, or even memory, as the center of everything. My only gripe about the book is that the mysteries seemed at times to drift maybe a bit too far back from the amazing description of the concrete lives of the central characters. Tap, tap, tap. This is all very interesting, but I want to know what happened to…

There are mysteries to be solved, sans PI. Polly drifts out of reality at times, struggling to discern what is, or was real. The story is told both from adult Polly’s perspective and from her as a child. This is pulled off quite well, believable in both cases.

Polly continues to struggle throughout. Some mysteries are resolved. Some questions remain, but the greatest strength of the novel, in addition to her celestial command of language, is Harrison’s vivid, detailed portrayal of an extended family, a community of the related and connected. Polly may be the lead, but this is an ensemble cast, with many interesting characters, who gain our attention in different ways. The rich detail Harrison offers gives very real texture to the characters’ lives. Both time settings are given close looks and we can see what the characters see, feel what they feel. There are characters aplenty striding through, many of whom would merit their own full-length tales. Papa and Dee’s household in the 60s was warm, raucous, and exciting. These people will certainly grab and hold your interest. There is magic aplenty in this book, and not in a fantasy way, although Polly does have some experiences that could easily have gone there.

The Center of Everything is a triumph, evocative writing, wonderful characters, smart consideration of how story functions in the world, as well as in literature, a 3D-immersive portrayal of a family, and a few mysteries as well. This novel should be at the center of your reading plans this winter, if you can remember.

Childhood is a green knot, hiding places and suspended time. It is the speed she can run through grass, the heat of the air, the fear of pissing her pants on the school bus, the difficulty of returning someone’s gaze, a bright object in the sand, the way a good moment can slide to bad.

Review posted – January 29, 2021

Publication dates
----------January 12, 2021 - hardcover
----------January 18, 2022 - trade paperback


I received a copy of this book from Counterpoint in exchange for an honest review. At least I think that was the deal. I can’t quite seem to recall.

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, GR and FB pages

Interviews
-----Lithub - Jamie Harrison on Finding Her Way to the Writer’s Life in the American West by Thomas McGuane (an old family friend)
-----David Abrams Books - My First Time: Jamie Harrison - for The Widow Nash, but some materials here are relevant

Items of Interest
-----Lapham’s Quarterly - Once Upon Time - the four oldest Fairy Tales

An image of it - Jamie says, in a facebook posting of this, “This is fun; I played around with these shifts in my new book.” One of the characters studies how stories change over eons, culture to culture.
-----Wiki on Jim Harrison, Jaime’s father, renowned poet, and author of Legends of the Fall - he was a professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island in 1965-66

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find the concept of memory fascinating: what one person remembers from an incident versus what another person remembers, especially regarding childhood. Hence I was drawn to Jamie Harrison’s “The Center of Everything” which explores the fragmented mind of the main character, Polly.

Polly is recovering from a major bike accident which left a dent in her head and major brain fog. As she regains her health, her mind seems scattered. She remembers odd things from her past; yet can’t remember where she placed her keys 10 minutes ago. Plus, she falls into fugue states where she “zones out”.

The story is told from two times, during a course of a week in 2002 and a summer in 1968. What ties these two timelines is when Polly’s much loved babysitter for her two children goes missing after a dubious kayaking mishap. The babysitter, Ariel, is presumed drowned after no one finding her. This event triggers a memory from 1968 when Polly saw a drowned body.

My favorite parts of the novel are Polly’s memories when she was 7 years-old and staying with her grandparents in Long Island during the summer of 1968. Polly feels that was a significant year when everything changed. I loved reading the events that young Polly remembered, in her youthful innocents. Harrison writes of that time so elegantly, with loving and adoring grandparents who allowed young Polly freedom to explore. The summer was eventful with many adults vacationing and partying with her grandparents.

Meanwhile, in the current time of 2002, Polly is charged with planning a birthday party for her 90 year-old great aunt, who was also part of her 1968 summer. Lurking in the background is what happened to Ariel and finding Ariel.

Harrison’s human observations are on par with Ann Tyler, in my opinion. Polly works to organize her party when a thought just pops into her mind, a memory of that defining 1968 summer. How Harrison writes Polly’s thoughts and then her memories are genuine and real. I couldn’t wait to get back to this novel and read. I was sad when it ended and wanted to immediately re-read the story.

This deserves 5 loud, shiny stars for literary excellence in domestic fiction. This is one of my top novels.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hand me the splint, please

What’s at the center of everything in this novel? Boredom! My arm will be sore from writing on the Complaint Board. Hand me the splint now please.

The story is about a woman, Polly, who hits her head and then has memory problems. We don’t hear about the hitting her head part (which I’m thinking could have been interesting); we just hear about her childhood and her adult self. The story goes back and forth between the two time periods. Memories abound. The Now plot revolves around a rafting accident concerning a beloved babysitter. What exactly happened to make her disappear? The two interesting characters are a mentally ill woman and a dog named Lemon—neither get enough air time. The one good plot point is a doozy twist at the end—I mean it’s a shocker. The author has some writing chops—the language is smooth and smart. I honestly thought I was in for a treat. Didn’t happen.

Complaint Board

-Memory schemory. I was excited when I started. Another book about a woman who loses her memory? I’m all in! I loved What Alice Forgot (a gem by Liane Moriarty), and I wanted a repeat performance. But, alas, whereas Alice woke me up, Polly put me to sleep. We’re supposed to think it’s a big deal that Polly remembers so much of her past. Her mom gives her a hard time; she thinks some of the memories are false, are gleaned from photos. Yada yada. All the memory talk fell flat for me. The memories could have at least been poignant or fascinating or heavy, but no. No jazz, no pizazz.

-Who’s who, for god sake? Too many people!! Wait. Is that the grandfather’s first wife? Is Henry a relative? Which one is an archeologist? Four generations hang out, and there are wives who died, but who can keep anything straight? Where’s a family tree when you need one? In fact, I think family trees ought to be required whenever there’s a multigenerational book. Give the reader a break! Thank God I can search for names on the Kindle (a big plus of the Kindle, I’ve gotta say).

-Who’s on first? Sometimes it’s hard to know who’s talking. Combine that with the basic Who’s Who problem and you have a frustrating experience.

-Now, how old are the kids? I never remembered the ages of Polly’s kids; they are sort of a blur. Are they little kids or are they teens? And they often spoke like adults, which made it harder to picture them and their age.

-You don’t say! When I first started reading about Polly’s childhood, I was bored and impatient and I thought it was a little side trip. I wanted to get back to the Now. I was trying to be a good reader and tolerate it (though I was annoyed that it was too long), when I suddenly realized, horrified, that it was going to be half of the story, equal to the Now in importance and page count. This meant I had to pay attention. But I didn’t WANT to pay attention. Was there something wrong with the writing that made me think it was a mere side trip, or was it just me with a reading weirdness?

-No connection, zilch. I couldn’t have cared less about any of the characters. And I thought all of them were boring.

-No no no! Spare me the picnic menu, please! I don’t want to hear about all the food you’re making for your picnic! Or even go to the damn picnic, for that matter. I just don’t. Picnics, are, well, so wholesome. I want edge, I tell you! I will say that the f word is used all the time in the book, which I agree, probably doesn’t go with the picnic scene I just set up. So maybe the cussing, in a good way, did rough the story up a bit, but I still just remember the picnic prep, not the foul language.

-Overwhelming detail-itis, leading to yawn city. Most of the book was description, in fact, and I no likey. Give me dialogue, give me internal monologue! I feel a list coming on…

Crimes of boredom:

-Dreams
-Food and kitchen time (WAY too much)
-Mundane events, like picnics and a parade
-Nature (LOTS of it)
-To-do lists (it’s not lost on me that I’m making what could be called a boring list!)

Pretty hefty Complaint Board, I know. Yeah, my arm is really sore.

Reading this made me want to do two things—

-Rebel! Remember when your parents made you stay in the kitchen and help chop vegetables? When they made you be polite to the guests, even though you’d rather be gabbing on the phone or reading a book? Well, even though this book didn’t have those scenes, I still felt trapped in excruciating domesticity and event planning. I wanted to run outside and hide, smoke cigarettes and drink secret beer, while all the boring, suburban people hung out in the kitchen and talked about food prep. They may call my name but I’d ignore them; I’d let them think I was in the bathroom.

-Stay away from multigenerational sagas. “Multigenerational” used to not be a bad word but it is now. In fact, it often was a plus when I was reading a blurb, because it meant “juicy and complex” to me and I’d joyfully add the book to my TBR list. But right now I completely hate multigenerational books, I do. See what this book did to me? And as I said earlier, it’s criminal not to have included a family tree.

For the first time in a long time, I skimmed. Which is probably what you’ll want to do with this too long review!

One last thing—

Here was my Star Trek: While reading, I was constantly changing my mind about how many stars I would dole out. Here was my star trek: 4, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 2. It sounds like when the dental hygienist is yelling out numbers as she’s measuring how deep your gum pockets are.

Others loved this book, so be sure to check out all the reviews. For me, it was a chore to finish.

Thanks to Edelweiss for the advance copy.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jamie Harrison's novel The Center of Everything is a sharp and shattering mystery wrapped in the familiar, worn blanket of family and shared history.

At the start of summer in 2002, Polly, 42-year-old mother of young Sam and toddler Helen, is recovering from a minor head injury after being hit while cycling. She experiences periods of muzziness, falling into painless migraines that deliver strange images, which could be childhood memories or possibly collections of dreams. An editor and accomplished cook who reads scripts for a semi-retired film star and serves as sous-chef to her husband Ned at their restaurant in Livingston, Montana, she's had to back off of her busy life while she recovers and regains her footing. Fortunately, she's surrounded by friends and family, including her mother, Jane, and father, Merle. When Polly begins to recall with sudden vividness the Summer of '68, when she was eight and her life turned upside-down, Jane brushes off her questions and attributes the sudden memories to the residual effects of Polly's head injury.

Just as Polly is preparing herself for the arrival of family near and far to celebrate the birthday of the family matriarch, the family's beloved babysitter goes missing. Ariel had been rafting with friends on the Yellowstone River, still dangerously swollen with runoff from the mountains, and the kayak she shared with Graham flipped. Graham, who claimed they were sweethearts despite the denials of her family and best friend, survived, but Ariel was lost to the rapids. The search for Ariel during the week surrounding the 4th of July is the backdrop to this warm, beautiful and heartbreaking novel.

Interwoven with the tragic present are flashbacks to that critical summer of Polly's childhood when she and her parents lived with her cherished great-grandparents, Papa and Dee. Rita, a family friend of Jane and Merle's, arrives with her young son, Edmund, unable to cope with raising her son after her husband volunteered to fight in Vietnam. Rita is a talented artist; she's also batshit crazy. Her neediness and incessant chatter drive the family to distraction and often, to separate rooms. Finally she goes over the edge and is committed to a hospital, but never for long. Polly and Edmund bond, but suddenly a brother of Rita's arrives and sweeps his sister and nephew away. Heartbroken, Polly tries but fails to track Edmund down.

Past and present are gradually woven together with threads of tragedy — mysterious deaths and visions of bodies haunt Polly as she tries to discern what's real and what she'd created to explain the unknowable — as well as comforting stories retold by her beloved family as they gather together to celebrate.

All the while, the truth of what happened to Ariel seeps out, devastating a closely-knit community. The kaleidoscopic tumbling together of stories right themselves into a vision of truth at the book's end, one that left me in tears of joy and deep sadness.

The book was a lovely surprise. I had never heard of Jamie Harrison before this novel, which astounds me. She is an extraordinarily gifted writer and storyteller. The Center of Everything makes me think of Jane Hamilton's intense family stories, but this is warmer, more joyful; of Barbara Kingsolver for its graceful rendering of place and the natural world; of William Kent Kruger for her ease in existing in a child's mind and the subtle, deft spinning of a mystery. I'm surprised by the relatively low rating. This book deserves far more attention. Highly recommended.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Center of Everything is the kind of multi-generational saga that I no longer read, but I am glad I gave this one a chance. Polly's family history is filled with the usual mix of secrets and love and love and secrets and imbroglios and connections, and references so fleeting you might just miss them in passing but which come back to haunt later on.

The framework of the piece begins with preparations for a July 4 week celebration coinciding with the disappearance of one of the town's better loved young women. Polly, the central figure if not the center of everything, had suffered a brain injuring bicycle accident several months earlier, causing "non painful migraines" and triggered flashbacks to the "tilting point" of the summer of 1968 when she was 8. From here on, the story occasionally reverts to that time.

Jamie Harrison has deliberately set this story in 2002 in order that the chronology will work for various family members as the plot becomes revealed, against such world events as WWI, Viet Nam, 9/11, and I am supposing, pre-Smartphone invasion. Her style of composition is unique - much of the action is rendered in flat, almost journalistic prose, but when we enter the "small kingdom" of Polly's mind, it becomes more expansive. It is a masterful work in which the prevalence of family traditions, the symbolic presence and importance of water, and the impermanence and unreliability of memory all play large parts. As I had become emotionally invested in so many of these people, I was pleased that their futures were revealed in I've come to call The Six Feet Under device. Well done.

[Addie BookCrazyBlogger · Rating 1 out of 5]

A multigenerational family saga that is mired in tragedy and dysfunction. The novel is broken up into two perspectives: one 4th of July weekend in July 2002, when a young friend of the family, Ariel has gone missing during a family reunion and in 1968, when the family is dealing with the mental illness of another family friend. In 1968, the dysfunctional family features Polly, her parents, her great grandfather and her step-grandmother dealing with the mental illness of their family friend Rita, who continually lives with them and relies on the family to take care of her child. Meanwhile in 2002, while planning for a family reunion, Polly struggles as an adult with memory problems due to an accident that took place six months before. Okay honestly, I have NO real idea what this book is about. It was like everyone all had something to say but none of it made any sense. It wasn’t just that all the characters were in need of therapy, it was that the point of the story just made no sense! Is this a book about a murder mystery? Is it a book that highlights mental illness? Is this a book that discusses dysfunctional families? I DON’T KNOW and I’m so irritated that I read this.

[janne Boswell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book confusing and difficult to follow. I struggled to get through it. I as well as Polly, couldn't quite get the storyline. I thought the book was disjointed and did not flow. I was lost from the beginning and then characters kept getting added? As a reader, there is nothing worse than being thrown into the middle of the story, and then attempting to unravel and figure out who these people are and oh wait-this is suppose to be a 'compelling family drama?! " I did not find this to be a compulsory read.
Regards to NetGalley & Counterpoint Publishing for giving me the opportunity to review this book.

janne boswell
https://seniorbooklounge.blogspot.com/

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The center of everything is Polly Schuster, on the cusp of middle age, married with two children, an editor with a scar on her scalp and a messed-up memory a result of a biking accident. When we first meet her, she is getting together a big celebration for her ancient aunt’s 90th birthday as memories flood back from her Montana childhood.

The reader is tossed into the middle of the story with a number of characters – her historian mother Jane, her husband Ned, her kids Helen and Sam and various residents of the town including her kids’ babysitter Ariel who is presumed dead when her kayak overturns. Graham, the young man she was secretly dating, was in the kayak with her and may or may not be involved.

As Polly’s grief incites her back to the late 1960s, fragment of memory of that time resurface from a child’s perspective. Is Polly experiencing a kind of benign fabulism with false memories? What can we trust about what we think we know?

The tone of the novel will either pull you in – or it won’t. There is a flatness about it that I found to be disconcertingly distancing. As the novel flows like a river across tie periods, I found myself wanting to dive in head first but couldn’t quite make the jump. Other readers, I suspect, will have an easier time.

[Terrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't for me. I know how much effort goes into writing a book and I wanted to like this one, but I just couldn't. I read about half and gave up. The premise of a woman who hits her head in a bike fall and then has memory problems sounded intriguing. What it was is confusing. The storyline jumps around, I couldn't track the characters, it jumps from past to current day. Maybe the jumping around is meant to mimic her brain, her thoughts after the brain injury - if so, I'd hate to be in her brain because it was really hard to follow. I feel like I wasn't given enough info about the main character to care that she is confused and can't remember things......

Thanks to #NetGalley and #CounterpointPress for the ARC kindle copy.

[Jodi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very confusing to follow - too many plot lines, the multigenerational bumps around too much. I wish I could have got into this one and followed the book, but it was very difficult to follow the plot lines through the story and the jumping around. I really did not understand it and felt I missed too much to be able to recover. Unfortunately for me it would be a pass. I believe it really could have been much better if the author focused on fewer plot lines and did not jump around through time lines.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Slow, bland and boring! Not for me. I don’t understand how in the world this book can be described as “compelling.”

The only character in this story that I liked/connected with, was Lemon, the dog, and the plot location, which is in Montana.

The main character, Polly, has had a head injury and the back and forth of her memory lapses into past and present are stuttered. Her mother, with her wisecracks about Pollys memory lapses is very crass and unsympathetic yet she’s there to help. It all comes across like a really bad comedy, one of which I wanted no part of.

[MandM · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED it!

Polly started pretending she was fine. Was it the past she was remembering or was it her newly injured brain just confused? Her husband, Ned, said she had “moments of deja you.” Her grandmother had told her there were three kinds of dreams; wishes or desires, loss or being lost, and fear. All she really wanted to do was to spend time with the people who were gone or she thought were gone and to look for her friend who had vanished in the river. Her “sanity was tenuous and her life was burning by.” “ If you couldn’t remember normal, how were you to tell,” reality from dreams.

The Center of Everything is a deeply moving family drama set near the beautifully dangerous Yellowstone River. Polly, a mother, wife, editor and cook, is trying to keep moving forward but the past is haunting her. It is a book whose pace keeps picking up like the river picks up things only later to throw them back.

Jamie Harrison has written a best of 2021.
“Love and wonder; everything goes missing but everything lives on, at least for a while, in the small kingdom of your head.”

[RMazin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Polly Schuster lives in Montana near the Yellowstone River. It is a few days before an annual 4th of July fest that she is hosting for family and friends. With her husband Ned, they run a bar/restaurant that is usually the epicenter of such activities. Polly also has two young children to care for as she goes about her activities.

But this year is exceptionally challenging for her on two different levels. There is a rafting tragedy on the Yellowstone that people question about how it occurred. And there are also Polly’s personal issues. She is recovering from a bike accident that left her with a brain injury. It is an injury that the doctors and insurance company do not readily acknowledge. But it becomes apparent to the reader – something is just not right. So, Polly is an unwillingly unreliable narrator.

Harrison takes us back and forth in time as Polly’s memory slips into the past, then forward into her current situation and unchartered future. Her memories are quite sensory. She is a keen observer of the sensory world in both the past and present – smells, sounds, and sights. She believes she recalls conversations and was present at events that she may have witnessed or just heard about. Sometimes the past seems more of a puzzle to her than her own puzzlement regarding the recent river tragedy. Sometimes, she even slips away from the present and enters a type of fugue state.

The author takes the reader back to Long Island Sound, New York City, World Wars, Vietnam and 9/ll. Many characters, both friends and family are introduced. This reader got somewhat confused as no doubt Polly may have, in trying to reconcile past and present. But the writing is so evocative of time and place, it was easy to persevere.

This is a journey that should be taken, even though the details are a bit overwhelming. Trust the author and Polly to take you to the place where an ending, beyond satisfactory is waiting. Highly recommended. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

[Christine Lowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book. This is an immersive look into the complexities of a multigenerational family. The characters are so well developed that I lost myself in their lives. This is a story I thought about when I had to put the book down.

In the first eleven pages, the reader discovers that Polly is hit by a car while riding her bike and suffers a brain injury. She sometimes freeze and temporarily disappears into a memory. Polly is learning to manage the spells with the help of friends and family. The second story arc is about Ariel, a well liked young woman, who disappears while kyaking with a group down the Yellowstone River. The third important element concerns the book title.... "Good mothers, good mothers were rarities, the center of everything,'' My recommendation is five stars for this great book.

I received an Advanced Reader's Copy from Counterpoint Press through NetGalley The opinions expressed are entirely my own.
#TheCenterOfEverything #NetGalley

[Nancy Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book I picked up on the new book shelf at my library just because. I knew nothing about it. I’m so glad I got it. It is really hard to say what it is about. Family and memories and past generations who pass on more than hair color and the shape of a nose. Polly is the main character and we follow her through two time lines. One is present day as she and her husband grapple with the death of a young woman who they were close to. The other time line and the one I found more compelling dealt with a year or so during Polly’s childhood when she and her parents lived with grandparents and great grandparents, her mother’s college friend and a son. Familial drama to spare. Some reviews say there are too many characters to keep up with. Just get a sticky note and take notes or, better yet, don’t worry about it. In the end, it doesn’t matter. There is much discussion of drowning so beware if you are sensitive to that subject.

[Kate Belt · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for the most novel and engaging novel I've read in a long time. Jamie Harrison has brought together a family of extended characters full of quirks and tenderness The central character, Polly, had a rich imaginative mind before her brain injury. Flashbacks to her childhood years suggest that her pre-TBI brain was itself a landscape like no other, leading some family to discount certain memories. I loved this richly atmospheric story as the action shifts between earlier events and the community's present grieving over a lost girl, presumed dead from a kayaking accident, but what about the supposed boyfriend in the boat with her at the time. Who is he really? Critical readers will appreciate the writing and character development in this exquisitely plotted story. Disclosure: I received a free ebook from NetGalley in expectation of an unbiased review.

[Annagrace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a delightful and wondrous surprise. It took me about 70 pages or so to really click in to the story. The structure was initially challenging for the current state of my own brain and memory, which is fitting as the book’s core question is memory and, in the beginning, brain injury, but really, memory and childhood. What do we absorb and see then, in five-sensory ways we don’t yet have words for? What lives in us at 40, 50, and beyond, waiting to be rattled out by something unexpected? There are so many fully-realized characters in this story, and the time-shifting narrative comes together gorgeously but not too clean. It’s masterful. I can’t believe The Center of Everything isn’t getting more buzz.

[Mary Jo]

DNF. Tried but just couldn't stick with it.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Center of Everything is a fictional story about family and the secrets it can hold. Polly, the primary character, suffers from a head injury that causes her to flash into a daydreaming state which can be both dangerous and insightful. This is the sixth novel by Jamie Harrison who lives in Montana where this novel takes place.

Polly gets sideswiped by a car while riding her bike and lands squarely on her head. At first there are no symptoms but she quickly loses her orientation and her memory. Doctors do not have a solution so she learns to cope but must be watched in case she loses track of where she is and what she is doing. Her mother comes to help particularly with a family reunion that they are organizing for Polly’s aunt Maude who is about to turn 90. A young friend of the family goes missing on the Yellowstone river and this causes Polly to flash back to memories of her family where there are several incidents associated with water. With these memories several secrets are revealed.

Landscape and water play a large role in the story. Harrison does a masterful job of integrated the beauty and power of the water and how it can sometimes mask the damage done to a person before they enter that environment. In at three cases murders are masked by the power of the water.

Family dynamics are also at the forefront. Over time and generations, family members are called upon to help the injured, the aged and the insane. Support and love of the family is critical the survival of its members.

I find the beginning of the book a bit confusing because we are being introduced to Polly’s malady and many family members at the same time. This makes the beginning of the book a bit cumbersome for me but once the story progresses it all works out.

I enjoy this book because there are many storylines and incidents that are subtly resolved as the novel proceeds. The interaction of all the family members is as complex as it is in real life. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys stories centred on relationships and family dynamics. I give it a 4 on 5.

I want to thank NetGalley, Catapult, Counterpoint Press, and Soft Skull Press for providing me with a digital copy of the novel in exchange for a fair review.

[Deedi Brown (DeediReads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

The Center of Everything is a beautiful family saga with an intriguing mystery (or two) thrown in. I enjoyed it and I’m glad I read it.

For you if: You like books with family trees printed in the front.

FULL REVIEW:

First, thank you to Counterpoint Press for sending me a finished copy of this book. The cover is stunning and I really enjoyed it.

The Center of Everything is part family saga, part literary mystery that takes place in a small town beside a raging river in Montana. The protagonist is a woman named Polly, who is still recovering from a recent head injury and finds her attention span altered. When a beloved young woman disappears on the river after kayaking with friends, the whole town jumps in to search for her. Meanwhile, we jump back in the time of Polly’s childhood, living with her grandparents and the young son of family friends, leading up to her discovery of a different drowned body.

There’s a lot this book does. It examines family, memory, community, love, parenthood, and more. The characters are beautiful and round and compelling. There are also a lot of them — in fact, there’s a family tree printed in the front — and I was pleasantly surprised that they were easier to keep track of than I’d expected.

I did find myself a little frustrated by the pacing and less engaged than I’d expected to be, but that definitely could have been a me-and-my-mindset-at-the-time problem, not a book problem. In fact, the book’s central mysteries were subtly compelling, one feeling inevitable and one pulsing in the background. Also, there was a heartwarming little twist at the end that I was kicking myself for not anticipating.

If you’re a sucker for contemporary family sagas, pick this one up. I think you’ll like it a lot.




TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Death and grief; Rape; Dating violence; Murder; Doctors not believing women; Parental neglect; Suicide

[Beth Mowbray · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for a beautifully written, slow burning, character-driven piece of literary fiction to kick off the upcoming new year, then I urge you to consider THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING.

Harrison’s latest novel tells the story of wife and mother, Polly, who lives amongst the beauty of nature in small town Montana with her family. After being hit by a car and thrown from her bicycle, Polly suffers from a traumatic brain injury. She struggles to attend to everyday tasks as she could before and she (along with those around her) constantly questions the authenticity of her thoughts and memories.

As Polly works her way through the chaos of her own mind, the town is also combing the local river for a young woman who has gone missing while out with friends on a rafting trip. Throughout this search, Polly dredges up long-lost memories from her childhood ... profound memories which have shaped who she has become.

Harrison does a brilliant job of weaving together her various storylines and timelines, pulling the reader into the center of the confusion and allowing them to also participate in sorting out what is true and what may perhaps be skewed. Examining the fragile nature of memory alongside the power that our created memories hold in our lives, she has written a uniquely thought-provoking work here. This book is perfect for readers who love generational family sagas and I look forward to reading more of Harrison’s work in the future.

Many thanks to Counterpoint Press for gifting me this advance copy. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own. THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING will be available on January 12th!

[Ashley P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a good surprise of a book! I grabbed it from my library because I thought it was on my 2021 New Book TBR. Got home and realized it was, in fact, NOT on my TBR. I decided to keep it anyways and give it a go and I am so glad I did!

If you want a deep plot-heavy book this is not for you. But if you are interested in a character-driven book then you will love this.

The entire book is Polly’s life journey from a young child born to a family of free-spirited hippies to a middle-aged woman who is recovering from a near death bicycle accident that affected her memories.

I could have had an entire book of her childhood with strong but loving Papa, Dee with her pottery and amazing sounding meals, Edmund who kept her a child even when so many adult situations around them have the potential to drown their family.

The only criticism I have is that their are SO many characters in the book. I was lost at points at who was related to who, how this person died, and where each person fit in.

So happy I decided to keep this instead of immediately returning it because I feel like I rarely give out 5 stars and this one for sure deserved every single one!

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I looked so forward to reading this book, that the higher it rose in my TBR pile, the more I smiled. Despite my initial enthusiasm and continuing hope, this book and I never connected. I found the writing flat and almost distant though I wish I could describe that better! Observational reporting perhaps, with no feeling towards what was happening.

For a book that wonders how much of what we think we remember is what really happened at the time, considering our changed perspectives of time and age, I'll find this read easy to forget. I shouldn't be so disappointed, it would be unlikely to connect with every read, though I had hoped to end 2020 and start 2021 on a brighter note.

My apologies and appreciation to the author, NetGalley, and Counterpoint Press for allowing me to read an advanced copy of the book which is to be published 1/12/2021. All opinions expressed here are my own.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wasn't quite sure what this book had in store when I began a few days ago. Someone else wrote that the story felt not like a work of fiction but the reading of a diary. I tend to agree. Polly is the protagonist and after a fall to the pavement from a bicycle accident is having difficulty sorting thoughts, reality, dreams, memories and the detritus of daily life. The story takes place in Montana in 2002 and flashbacks in Long Island Sound during the 1960's. The birthday celebration of a family matriarch over the July 4th holiday is the setting. It's a complicated family (as all are). The reminiscing of the 1960's is the key to understanding appreciating this story. The great grandparents offer such a delightful view of teaching children about family and life and love. It all came together in the end and my appreciation settled in with the final pages.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought I would like this because of the setting in Montana and plot summary. Unfortunately, I just could not get into this novel. The writing was fine, but I could not make myself care enough about this family to rate it any higher.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely, multi-generational family tale beautifully told over a few days in 2002 and a few in 1968. The quirks of memory are deeply explored, along with marriage, Montana, and fabulous family picnics.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully told multi-generational family saga that switches back and forth between summer 2002 and summer 1968. (And thank goodness for the family tree at the front of the book!)

In 2002, Polly is recovering from a head injury that has compromised her short-term memory and at times leaves her “lost” and staring into space. But her determination to remember brings back the summer she was 8 years old in dream-like specificity and detail. That was the year she and her parents joined her magical grandparents in their house on Long Island Sound, and took in a college friend, now a gifted artist going mad, and her son, Edmund.

In 2002, Polly and her husband Ned live in gorgeous Montana, and the extended clan is gathering for the 90th birthday celebration of a favourite aunt when a beloved friend goes missing after a kayaking accident on the raging Yellowstone. As the search parties head out day after day, Polly continues to drift in and out and recall more details from 1968, memories that her mother seems a little too eager to dismiss as unreal.

This is a family that has its share of tragedy, much of it having to do with disappearances, and drowning, and the discovery of bodies, often by children. The characters are vividly drawn and engaging, and the story pulls you in. There’s a happy surprise revealed near the end. I felt like I should have twigged earlier, but no matter—it goes a long way to knitting the two timelines into a coherent whole. Very satisfying!

[Benjamin Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. It was dark but still resolved, bringing everything together. It managed to feel expansive (in time and tracing of family tree) while still feeling intimately and narrowly defined by Polly and her experiences.

Also, every so often there would be a turn of phrase that just sung out to me.

At first glance, I worried it would be hard to follow, but the two strands of story are each told in chronological order and the flashbacks reinforce what is happening in the present. The way things layer together was effective and compelling for me.

Note: I started this book in print, but when I wanted to keep momentum on finishing it and was having trouble finding time to read I switched to audio book.

[Lesley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book doesn't work as an audio. Too many memory jumps, too many characters to keep track of. 'when are we?' and 'who is that?' were my main thoughts while reading. I just found out that there is a family tree printed in the front of the book. Maybe I'll read it again someday with that family tree firmly in hand.

[Adela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a hard time getting into this at first, but I did end up enjoying it. At times the prose was really beautiful; at others, it was confusing, which made for a more frustrating reading experience. It was the characters that won me over with all of their quirks and imperfections and deep connection to each other. And the food! Wow.