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Everthing: A Novel (2000)

by Kevin Canty(Favorite Author)

3.48 of 5 Votes: 2

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review 1: Everything by Kevin Canty, Nan A. Talese/ Doubleday 2010, New York Kevin Canty’s Everything is an all-encompassing fiction novel about life, love and the limitless cycle of death and rebirth. The book opens with the scene of a majestic, flowing river. June and RL are perched on a couple of cool rocks sipping hard liquor straight out of the bottle. From the beginning, we are presented with a sense of confusion and uneasiness. June mourns the anniversary of her dead husband, as she does each year, while RL listens and wallows in his own self-pity. Happiness acts as a common theme among characters and Canty expertly throws us into the peaks and valleys of a human experience. Eloquent, prose sentence structure dictates most of the piece, pulling readers down the page and mak... moreing it nearly impossible to stop reading. This is coupled with strong imagery and an ominous yet optimistic voice. For example Canty describes the joy ride between girls as, “June waited as they came down a long curving hill to meet the other highway where it came up out of the river valley, gray fields and black crows under a sky that was suddenly covered in a black cloud”(228). The visual imagery of this scene brings readers to the dark side of life and tempts them to accept their fate. He also shows readers his optimism through other visual symbols. The main symbol of nature, more specifically the river, captures a feeling of perpetual growth. No matter the pain you feel now, life will continue to move forward as long as you persevere. Throughout the novel we are exposed to scenes of each character near the river. For example, Edgar running to find love, Layla fishing for a better catch, June searching for herself and RL searching for peace. Everything is formatted in a very unique manner where different chapters act as a microscope for each of the characters personal stories. In the first half of the book, we are presented with our core characters, June, RL, Layla, Edgar and Betsy. We quickly develop relationships with them and empathize with their situations. For example when Betsy is diagnosed with cancer and RL swings to her rescue, we are exposed to a softer side of RL that we haven’t seen before. Again we see this when RL runs off to Mexico on a whim and his daughter, Layla, is left to clean up the mess.The ambiguity of the ending left an abundance of information to the reader’s interpretation. Although, I was left wondering what would become of Layla, June and RL. Canty created such an undeniable connection between characters and readers, that it almost seemed set for a sequel. However, if he did not have a sequel in mind, I would have liked to see a little more clarity toward the end of the book. Was the flame sparked between my two favorite characters? Did Layla find a way to move from her past and proceed with the future alone, or does she have someone by her side? Many questions were left unanswered. Either adding to the suspense or taking away from the overall story, depending on the reader’s perception. Everything is not only a novel, but also a depiction of the trials and trumps of everyday life. The experiences we encounter with the characters are those that you would find on a day-to-day basis. Encompassing the fears of growing up, being alone, falling ill, loosing or gaining a fortune, dying and eventually forgetting it all and being reborn. Canty does an exceptional job of removing readers from their reality and placing them in the back woods of Montana, only to watch them fish or be fished.
review 2: Everything: An Intricate Tapestry of Humanity, of Emotion…of Life.Reviewed by: Laura ArochoPublished in 2010 by Doubleday, a division of Random HouseSet in Montana, Kevin Canty’s Everything follows RL, Layla, June and Edgar, who are all intertwined not just by the bonds of their relationships, but by their mutual desire for something more, something better than the empty lives that they currently have. June and RL, linked by June’s late husband, Taylor (who was RL’s best friend) seek to end the emptiness in different ways. For June, it’s letting go of the past, not meeting with RL every year to celebrate her husband’s birthday, getting rid of the old house she shared with Taylor that “fit over her like a shell, like a snake’s skin, something she needed to split, to crack, to grow out of,” and moving on. For RL, it means holding fast to the past, to the friendships that he had in a time before divorce, before his daughter Layla went to college, before the loneliness set in. This need for a connection, to be rid of loneliness, in combination with his need for redemption are what guide him into a misguided romance with an old college girlfriend who is terminally ill – and married. Meanwhile, Edgar and Layla seek true happiness – and find it in each other. But that happiness comes at a high cost for the both of them, Layla’s being bitterness and Edgar’s being soul-wracking guilt for not already being happy in his marriage.Canty writes with excellent vividness and the scenes in this work are crisp, clean and alive in the mind’s eye. The work moves at a very steady, enjoyable pace that allows the reader to become immersed in the story while not drowning in prose. His style of not punctuating dialogue, while at times difficult to follow and slightly confusing, definitely aids the piece in moving right along. Also, Canty does an excellent job of confronting true emotions in this work; the loneliness, the bitterness, the pain, the need for connection, the lives that these characters face every day in Missoula, Montana is very palpable and real. Although the characters are well done, it’s the emotion that truly gives life to the characters and what pulls the reader in more than anything. Without the palpability of their emotions, the truth contained in their struggle, I’m not quite so sure that they would stand very well and a true connection with the characters would be very difficult to form.Although Everything is not an “action-packed” or overly dramatic piece, it is an every-man piece that has the ability to speak to all of us simply because the conflicts and uncertainties that it contains in its pages are ones that we ourselves have to confront in our lives at some point or another. Written with masterful insight, Everything is 282 pages of excellence. less

Download links for: Everthing: A Novel

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