How can we know that our memories are true ones, especially when they’re passed down through generations of a family beset by tragedy? The gorgeous new novel from Jamie Harrison...brilliantly tackles that question, along with limning the bonds of family, the pull of the natural world and, oh yes, the distinct pleasures of food ... Memory is the real star here, and Harrison writes about it so intimately that it’s hard not to feel the same sense of wonder—and disorientation—that Polly does ... Harrison’s writing is as lush as the landscapes themselves, moving from Long Island to Michigan to Montana, with breathtaking descriptions ... Harrison’s writing shimmers like light-sparkled water, and it’s full of lush sensory details. Lavish meals are lovingly described from dinner to dessert. Polly’s musings about what happened to Ariel are as haunted as she is ... Despite the missing girl, this is no thriller. Instead, Harrison’s novel, as immersive as the Yellowstone River itself, is about another kind of mystery: the ways family connects us through the generations, the stunning secrets we hide to protect others or ourselves, and the shocking truths we must grapple with ... a waking dream readers won’t want to wake up from.

Harrison deftly weaves the story of Polly’s present life in the summer of 2002 Montana with remembrances of her 8-year-old self in 1968, living on Long Island Sound with her parents (who were often not home) and her great-grandparents ... Polly’s memories of her Long Island Sound childhood serve as a kind of welcome relief to her, as well as to the reader, and provide a background of understanding for what is to come ... Harrison elegantly yet simply paints the lives of her characters ... In The Center of Everything, Jamie Harrison has created a world so total, so real, so personal, that the reader, on finishing it, is missing it already.

... a lively narrative ... sensations dominate the narrative, from the smells and tastes of Dee’s exotic meals to sights from around New York, Michigan and Montana, as well as memories of physical closeness and warmth. The text is idiosyncratic, composed of lists and phrases, a mosaic of impressions from past and present ... Reading The Center of Everything is like traveling further and further into a dream, spiraling around fragments toward a point of love and wonder. It’s a redemptive and hopeful novel guided by earthy, reliable men, women and children who inspire and encourage.

There may be a bit too much consonance between the events past and present that give the novel its structure. But, in light of Polly’s great-grandfather’s work as a famous excavator of myths, a la Joseph Campbell, we might also see such coincidences as reflections of a larger, more intricate design than the tangled branches of one family tree ... The nature of Papa’s work also peoples Polly’s story with a wonderful cast of interesting characters: writers, artists, historians and crazies whose erudition, curious ideas and inspired eccentricities infuse Polly’s mental mapmaking with shimmering light and color. And it is really the way Polly thinks that makes this book so engaging ... Carrying us along, Polly conjures a richly textured, often lovely life of everyday loss and longing and endless speculation ... Harrison’s novel takes the unreliable narrator to a whole new place: in short, to the center of everything.

As the narrative deftly moves back and forth between Polly's current troubles and her childhood years in 1960s New York, rife with half-understood adult tragedies that engulfed her beloved grandparents, parents, and best friend, Edmund, old traumas resurface with stunning parallels ... In this exquisitely nuanced, beautifully constructed novel, Harrison...draws the reader into young Polly's filtered understanding of her world, rich with happily married couples, vs. the uncertain reality of the adult Polly, coping with memory loss while slowly untangling shocking family secrets. A magnificent gem.

Death truly is 'the center of everything' in this lyrical, profound novel; Polly herself has survived, while many of her relatives and people close to her have not. While readers may feel at times as if they’re meandering down that long, winding river, Harrison...reels them back in by the end, pulling Polly’s memories together into a surprising ending. Recommended for book clubs and fans of complex, literary fiction.

... brilliant ... Against the backdrop of Polly’s family history and the author’s exploration of the vagaries of the human mind, Harrison plumbs complex family relationships and sheds insight on the power of memories and how they shape her characters. Harrison shines with passages of vivid imagery as Polly gains an added dimension of perception from looking at art and photographs. Readers will find themselves wishing this won’t end.

Polly’s emotional turmoil is the center of the novel as she fixates not only on Ariel’s death, but also on what exactly happened in 1968, 'when her world blew up' ... a kaleidoscope of facts and recollections that reveal emotional as well as factual truth only in tantalizing fragments ... Through small moments, particularly shared meals and drinks, the reader becomes intimately involved in Polly’s inner life and falls in love with a vividly portrayed Montana devoid of Western clichés. A sharply intelligent, warmhearted embrace of human imperfection—the kind of book that invites a second reading.