Really interesting approach - connecting multiple present characters to their ancestors' stories and tying everything together. And I get that he couldn't conclude all the stories in a satisfying way, but I was expecting a little more at the end, and was rather surprised when I turned the page and saw Acknowledgements. But an interesting and enjoyable read, nevertheless.

I'll read anything Jonathan Evison writes.

It's A Small World indeed as Evison takes us down such a remarkable path. How he blends each character into each other kept me so surprised and delighted. There were some edge of your seat and heartbreaking moments but I loved it - it's great for book discussions.

I couldn't help but think about Robert Altman, the legendary American film director, as I read Jonathan Evisons's epic Small World, which I read courtesy of NetGalley and PenguinRandomHouse. Like Altman at his best, Evinson takes a collection of seemingly random and compelling personal stories and skillfully weaves them into a monumental saga of American exploration and growth. Evinson is a great story storyteller, and with Small World he is on top of his game.

Beginning in the 1800s and concluding more than 170 years later, we meet a handful of characters on their way west - all seeking some place to call home. Their stories may seem vaguely familiar, perhaps because they make up the iconic stories that have come to define us as a nation. Stories of triumph and tragedy; of heroes and villains, of the wealthy and needy; the hunters and the hunted. Evison ties these stories with those of their descendants through the construction of the transcontinental railroad.

Evison's multiple stories are a joy to read by themselves. When intertwined with the others, Evison's vision of a nation where we are all connected becomes clear. One reviewer referred to the novel as Dickensian in scope, and the description is appropriate. They are both terrific storytellers.
I know it's trite, but i didn't want the book to end. Evisnon's writing is additive, compelling and cinematic. This is a great novel. Perfect for a a midwinter's read.

This panoramic novel follows the experiences of a diverse group of characters spanning more than a hundred fifty years of American history. Among them are:

George Flowers, a slave who seizes the opportunity to escape from his insufferable master

Wu Chen, a newly arrived immigrant from China who accepts an invitation to work a gold-mining claim along with three brothers, and cannot forgive himself for not acting to prevent a tragedy

Nora and Finn Bergen, close-knit orphaned Irish twins living on the streets of Chicago until they are separated, holding onto the dream of finding each other again

Luyu Tully, a sixteen-year-old Miwok girl who can no longer tolerate living with a missionary couple and leaves, making a sudden, bold decision that is her best chance for a better life

Interspersed with episodes relating the experiences of these intrepid individuals are chapters introducing us to their modern-day descendants whose stories are as varied and fascinating as those of their forbears. Teen basketball star Malik Flowers, well-to-do businesswoman Jenny Chen, victim of circumstances Laila Tully, and retiring Amtrak engineer Walter Bergen live in vastly different worlds. Yet, a series of events bring them together in unexpected ways.

With this novel, author Jonathan Evison demonstrates his incredible skill as a writer. He keeps readers turning the pages and often at the edge of their seats as the events unfold. We look into the minds and hearts of all the players in this drama, heroes and villains alike. Each character is well-rounded and believable, and their experiences paint a vibrant picture of the actualities of life for people of all walks of life, past and present. Readers gain a feel for the realities, hopes, injustices, and achievements making this country what it is today that you will not find in American history textbooks. (Note: Occasional strong language and the lifestyles of several characters may be off-putting to some readers.) All in all, Small World is an ingenious novel that will be of interest to readers who enjoy historical fiction, history, adventure, and a can’t-put-it-down good story.

3.5 stars

"Small World" is one of those books I should have adored but somehow didn't. Jonathan Evison is a good writer, the characters are well-developed, the sense of place is always on point. The story follows four marginalized people of the 1850, and scoots ahead to 2019 where we see their descendants all on a train headed for disaster. It's weird--I put this book down and picked it up again later and happily finished it. I look forward to others' take on it.

I'm grateful to Netgalley and Dutton for digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The original premise of a train wreck and the lives it affected got me hooked immediately. I enjoyed how the lives of those on the train were woven with their ancestors going back to the mid nineteenth century. The author expertly showed how life was like for many of these early settlers and the hardships many of them endured. Many historical events were highlighted such as slavery, the early railroad industry and the prejudices encountered by Native Americans and Chinese and Irish immigrants. Chapters alternated between the mid-19th century and modern day and how fortunes and disasters formed their modern day counterparts. Very engrossing and entertaining.

One of the best things about a new Jonathan Evison book is that it is truly new. While some themes are given another treatment (impacts of class/economic/racial inequalities) in Small World, the narratives are fresh , the characters draw you in right away, and the multi-generational presentation offers great historical perspective. The scope of the book is expansive, and though told in a non-linear fashion, it is easy to keep track of the multiple storylines. While the convergence of those storylines is quickly foreshadowed, the anticipation is completely engrossing. A great read!!

A sprawling multi-family, multi-generational historical fiction centered around the building of the railroad across the United States.

This is a delightful novel, spanning centuries of American history and the stories of immigrants, Native Americans, families and connections through time. The interwoven stories lead multiple families to connect during the derailment of an Amtrak train in Oregon, not knowing their lives and the lives of their ancestors had intersected before as America expanded into the far west during the Gold Rush and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. Deftly told, this epic tale was a joy to read!

Jonathan Evison’s obsession with the western US continues in his latest novel, Small World. In it, we meet a diverse group of characters — a runaway slave, a recently orphaned Irish immigrant, a Chinese immigrant, and a Native American — living in the US during the explosion of western expansion after the 1849 gold discovery. Woven into their stories are sections about their modern-day descendants living on the west coast. It’s a lot of characters to keep track of, but Evison does a nice job of making each voice distinct, and their incredibly varied backgrounds and situations also keep the stories separate. I enjoyed this book, but I think Evison might have taken on a bit too much, and the characters tend to fall into predictable stereotypes and circumstances. Overall, a solid novel from an excellent writer, so Evison fans and historical fiction readers will not be disappointed.

Thanks to NetGalley for this advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.
Can I start with: I didn’t want this to end!

Ok, starting again. It’s the 1850s and we meet a Chinese immigrant, Irish immigrants (and orphaned twins), a runaway slave, and an Indian girl. These are the most marginalized groups of the era.
But wait. Now it’s 2019 and we meet their descendants. How much has changed in nearly 170 years and how much more work do we need to do?

I loved this book. I was enthralled as we learned about the characters and how they intersected. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. Wanting to see this as a movie isn’t enough. I would hope to see this someday as a PBS series! There is just so much in this book to take in. It took a minute to sort it out in the beginning but once you have the characters down, you just want to lay back within the book and watch it all unfold.

This book is a warm blanket on a cold night. A dog on your lap and a cup of hot tea. There is so much to talk about that I put it on our book club list before I even finished. We will be doing this in our book club. So should you!

5 stars.

Evison has created expertly an old fashion epic saga with very contemporary themes and interlocking characters that you like. Evison traces the contributions of the chinese, irish, black and native american to the growth of America and the injustices done to them. Unfortunately, these injustices still exist in different forms today. At times you think you are reading a Charles Dickens novel. Very engrossing. Without giving any spoilers away I hope there will be a sequel/prequel since I wanted to know what happened between 1899 and 2019 to the ancestors/descendants. Very timely.

This is a big sprawler, more wide than deep, but engaging. The novel follows a cast of strivers from the mid-19th century—Irish immigrant twins who make their way from New York to Chicago and points west, a Chinese immigrant who lands in San Francisco in search of gold, an escaped slave, and a Miwok girl in search of a life away from the Methodists who took her in after the Native massacre at Sutter's Mill—and their descendants in 2019. They're linked in ways large and small, most notably, and literally, by the railroad—expanding across the country in the 1850s, hurtling up the west coast in the 21st century. It's a fun shaggy tale that picks up—excuse me—steam as it goes, and while Evison doesn't tie up all the ends perfectly (maybe for the better), it's a satisfying, panoramic read.

An intricate historical puzzle composed of multigenerational family dynamics and suspense.

Jonathan Evison’s Small World is quite large actually, encompassing four sets of ancestors and associated persons from many distant countries. The stories of the characters in the novel begin in the 1800’s, entwine with each other over two hundred years, and collide, astonishingly, on a train ride in Oregon in 2019. It is the crossing of paths by disparate ancestors and the coming together of their descendants near the end of the story that suggest the title of the novel.

A variety of protagonists populate Small World. Evison’s development of them is brilliantly done, not only for its detail but also for its clever and subtle juxtaposing of the circumstances of their lives and the hardships they endure, culturally and physically. Racism and prejudice abound, blatantly in the eighteenth century parts of the story and evasively by the twenty-first century. The ancestors set the stage. George (Othello) Flowers is a runaway slave in Chicago, Wu Chen is from China, a gold rush prospector and then shopkeeper in San Francisco, John and Luyu Tully are American Indians struggling to make a home in the Rocky Mountains, and the Bergen twins from Ireland are separated in a Chicago orphanage, Nora sent to be a servant in the home of a rich man, Abraham Seymour, who was once a Jewish orphan in England, and Finn adopted by the Vogels, German immigrants intending to be farmers in the Midwest. Their descendants complete the themes: Walter Bergin, a railroad engineer; Malik Flowers, a budding basketball star; Jenny Chen, a successful businesswoman; and Laila Tully, a young woman fleeing from an abusive man. The villains are well done: Don LoPriori, a chauvinist business owner; Warnock, a slave owner; Boaz, an abusive boyfriend; and Master Searles, the orphanage director.

Small World is divided into multiple stories that at the outset don’t seem to have a connection. Each story has its own protagonist and antagonist, some of whom cross over into other stories as the novel progresses, embedded into an intricate pattern of plots that near the end come together with all the descendants boarding the train in Oregon. The novel begins in 2019 with the beginning of the train’s journey, the Bergen’s descendant Walter being the train’s engineer. Thereafter, times and characters jump between the eighteen and twenty-first centuries. There are three sections in the novel: Golden, Fortunes, and Horizons. Within each of those are multiple subsections, each of which contains a piece of each character’s plot through a particular time period. These subsections are like pieces of a large puzzle laid out on a table to be assembled by the reader as the novel progresses. It’s an extraordinary device used by the author to create suspense and tension as the stories move forward and, on a macro level, to demonstrate how a family’s history, while often thought of chronologically, is understood emotionally and, frequently, subconsciously. Mistakes and tragedies are repeated in between jubilation and good fortune.

Readers of Small World will find it hard to put the book down. The author does a masterful job of revealing the stories’ elements in a fashion that creates anticipation. The settings for the stories are beautifully described, whether a ship’s hold, the streets of New York, the Iowa prairie, a view of the Pacific, or a raging snowstorm in the Northwest. The imagery makes the character’s emotions palpable. So many times the reader will weep for the world, as Nora Bergen does, and realize, as the author so shrewdly demonstrates, that in family history the end of one’s story is but the beginning of another.

Mark Zvonkovic, Reviewer and Author

I am used to my sweeping historical fiction to progress linearly a la Min Jin Lee’s “Pachinko” or any James Michener book, so Jonathan Evison’s “Small World” came as a different change of pace. His latest book ping pongs back and forth over time between two casts of various characters. One group is an assortment of men and women making their way to or around the Pacific coast and the northwest in the 1800s, the other is their ancestors in the present-day, many of whom find themselves all together on an Amtrak train heading to Seattle one winter’s evening.

Despite the chronological bouncing about, I never once got lost. Quite the opposite, I found myself absorbed in a story that serves as a sort of microcosm of the United States as a whole. Through the eyes of many of its characters, this book reveals a land that is often cruel, harsh, and at times outrageously unjust. However, Evision also shows a world where, in both past present, there are also serendipitous connections, acts of kindness, and new bonds that can help people persevere in the face of hardship and tragedy.

It’s a shame that “Small World” is not set to be published until winter of 2022 - I think it’s the perfect kind of historical fiction work to get lost in during anyone’s summer break.

Jonathan Evison is a storyteller, an old-fashioned raconteur. My first exposure was with “West of Here.” “Small World” is a weighty successor, focusing primarily on how the Pacific US was industrialized and settled. The story is told through multiple lenses in all their glory and gore: Native American, Asia and European immigrants, unemancipated escaped and hunted slaves, Jewish investors, believers and non-. The stories have their roots in the 19th century and interweave in period and tale up to the present time. Overlap, serendipity, triumph, and tragedy ensue. We see the best of human nature and the worst.

The lineages each tie to historical and/or plausible back stories. Evison has clearly done his research, but it is integrated in the best of ways – subtle, organic, and nuanced. One “character” which insinuates itself into most all the threads is the cross-continental railroad. Descriptions of its initial conception, impact on cruel displacement, arduous construction, and impact of multiple generations of community and family weave in and out of the lives of the characters.

The Pacific Northwest is beautiful and critical to the country’s economy. It is also built on the backs of Native and immigrant foundations in an exploitive way that has never been repaid. The impact of this disparity has only deepened over the years. Evison does a wonderful job of shining a light, multiple, critical lights, in his telling of the story. Bravo.

The storylines are intensely cinematic. It would be difficult to write and shoot a mini-series or full-length film screenplay, but I would be first in line to see it. Beautifully executed.

Thank you to Penguin Group Dutton and NetGalley for the eARC.