The Center of Everything

THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING is a masterpiece. Harrison drops us into the story of Polly, a thirty-something woman living in Montana and suffering from post-concussive disorder. Because of her head injury, Polly doesn't always process information like the rest of us and her life has taken on a dream-like quality. The story follows Polly as she prepares for the 90th birthday of her great-aunt Maude, a troublesome woman, while simultaneously searching for her friend Ariel, who was lost on the Yellowstone river a few days before and presumed drowned. As Polly begins to reflect on memories of of other dead bodies she encountered as a child, her mother tries to convince her that her memory is unreliable, affected by her brain injury. Harrison's true brilliance comes from her ability to have the reader experience the story as though they too are as disoriented as Polly. THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING is a meandering story, full of details of ordinary life, the significance of which is not revealed until the end. Then we finally understand this fascinating, flawed and utterly wonderful family. It was the most satisfying book I have read in ages.. Now excuse me while I dash off to buy every other book Harrison has written. ...

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.

While the book was not long, it took me a while to get through it. Polly struggles with her memory and executive functions of the brain after a car hit her bike. There were so many characters and so many memories shared, I had trouble keeping everything straight. That being said, I found the story hits the mark when talking about brain injuries. Harrison has written a story that portrays the issues well. Perhaps it was painful reading for me since I am carrying for my husband who has Frontal Temporal Dementia and Polly’s issues are so real to me.

Reviewed this for major newspaper. Hypnotic, gorgeous writing, and a story I won't forget. I truly loved this one.

A wonderful saga of three generations. I struggled at first to keep all the storylines straight but the more I read, the more invested I became. The story of Polly and her brain injury recovery was most poignant. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This is a complicated book, and the writing style doesn’t help matters. I found it very confusing in the first portion, trying to figure out who were all these characters. People are introduced as if you know who they are right away.

The world is of Polly. She had a concussion months ago, but is still recovering from her injury, sometimes she drifts off, sees things, Polly is consumed by memories of her past. Many of these memories her mother Jane claim are not something Polly would remember but made up from photographs and stories the family told.

This brings us from present 2002 to the past in 1968 when Polly was 8 and it was a significant time in her life. Both settings are in the same family home in Montana. As the past comes forward, and there is another death of significance, a family friend, a young girl who went missing after a day on the river with a group of friends.

The book is very rich with details and imagery. The world is fully developed, and one can see all that is contained, once you get further into the story and settled into the setting. There are loose threads throughout the book that slowly tie together in the end. This is one book where the ending makes up for the difficulties in the beginning.