Everything Matters!

April 6, 2009
In Curie’s curious second novel (after NYPL Young Lion Award–winning God Is Dead
), a young man nearly succeeds in his attempt to inject meaning into a doomed world. A mysterious voice has accompanied Junior Thibodeax all his life, having chosen the moment after Junior’s birth to tell him that a meteor will destroy Earth in 36 years. The voice also tells him secrets about his father, his girlfriend and his brother, as well as providing a cure for cancer and sage advice against bombing a federal building. From modest beginnings, Junior descends into violent insanity before finding himself lifted to a position of supreme importance. But even with his foreknowledge, the prophet cannot win every battle, and the ones he loses are more than sufficient to break his heart. Curie shows an appreciation for whimsical storytelling, leaning on unlikely chains of events and multiple perspectives to tell what could otherwise be a very dark tale, and though the omnisciently narrated portions come off as heavy-handed, the big decision he makes toward the end recasts the story in a strangely hopeful light and lends a pile of emotional currency to the book’s title.

June 15, 2009
The apocalypse, provocatively envisioned with wild invention and irreverent wit.

The declarative title and confrontational theology link Currie's second novel quite logically with its predecessor (God Is Dead, 2007). John Thibodeau Jr., aka"Junior," grows up oppressed by the message received from a mysterious otherworldly voice during his infancy that in 36 years, on June 15, 2010, a comet will destroy all life on earth. As Junior warily prepares to undertake an undisclosed"task," the story's viewpoint shifts among our protagonist (who addresses himself in a frequently clumsy second-person voice); his stoical, sentient dad; frail alcoholic mother; older brother Rodney, who's both a juvenile delinquent and a baseball phenom; and Junior's schoolmate Amy, who spends years worrying whether he'll ever become the man she can love. The peregrinations and problems of these necessarily connected characters are smartly juxtaposed with evidence in the world around them (e.g., the Challenger explosion) that suggests Junior isn't delusional. In some passages, Currie seems to be straining to fill pages: a terrorist plot against a Miami federal building engineered by a drug-dealing triple amputee; a sequence detailing Amy's foolhardy behavior aboard an airplane and her subsequent victimization by paranoid security personnel. But everything keeps circling back to Junior's unique ordeal and mission, and Currie pulls off a beautiful twist that reconfigures the narrative's momentum (arranged in a precise countdown), presenting an ironic and quite moving alternative version of the looming near future. In this brave old world, Rodney's Chicago Cubs make it to the World Series—and you'll never guess who has been elected president of the United States.

This vivid novel races and sputters jerkily, but it's an exhilarating ride nevertheless.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2009
Currie's first book, "God Is Dead", was a collection of linked short stories in which God returns to Earth as a poor Sudanese woman and is devoured by wild dogs. "Everything Matters!" is a novel, but thematically and stylistically it is quite similar to the earlier work. Junior Thibodeau of Waterville, MEthe fourth-smartest person in human historyis born with the certain knowledge that an asteroid will destroy Earth in 36 years. In that case, what is the point of living? In this radical reimagining of Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life", Junior tells his own story, while in alternating chapters his wildly dysfunctional family and friends provide commentary. VERDICT The basic premise is preposterous, and the subsequent events are incredible, but it is all presented in a matter-of-fact tone. This book is difficult to categorize. It's a comedy, but it's not particularly funny. It's a novel of ideas, but it mocks intellectualism. It's a fantasy, but it includes a cameo appearance by Sen. Olympia Snowe. This won't be everyone's cup of tea, but fans of "God Is Dead" will love it. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/15/09.]Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles

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