Everything Matters!

“Everything ends, and Everything matters.
Everything matters not in spite of the end of you and all that you love, but because of it. Everything is all you’ve got…and after Everything is nothing. So you were wise to welcome Everything, the good and the bad alike, and cling to it all. Gather it in. Seek the meaning in sorrow and don’t ever turn away, not once, from here until the end. Because it is all the same, it is all unfathomable, and it is all infinitely preferable to the one dreadful alternative."
-Ron Currie Jr, Everything Matters!

Everything Matters! is the story of Junior, a man who knows from his inception that the world will end via comet in 36 years. Part scrappy prose, part science fiction, the narrative tumbles from there-- a terrifying premise told through the ordinary lens of the struggling family of a man holding the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Braced with this understanding Junior coils and fears, worries and waits. He realizes quickly and ferociously that in a world ending before we can save the dolphins or cure cancer or watch the next generation accomplish anything at all, NOTHING MATTERS. Nothing matters! Nothing matters.

The trick-- dear reader-- is a shared understanding that Currie wouldn't hand us a book with such a grandiose (and perfect!) title without promising us an explanation. And with about 40 pages to go, he hands us our prize for trudging through Junior's resentment and fear. As Junior is offered a second chance, we are handed a much greater understanding of both Currie's motives and, well, life! I felt physically shaken by the last few pages. Shaken and enlightened, if I may be so bold.

READ IT. This book was quite literally shoved into my fingers by the booksellers at The Strand, and here is your written push. This book has taken me days to process and I'd love to discuss it with you.


Next up: Zeroville.