In Ron Currie Junior's second novel, "Everything Matters!" a fetus is greeted by an unnamed narrator who soothingly says "First, enjoy this time! Never again will you bear so little responsibility for your own survival.” Soon after, the voice outlines the rest of Junior Thibodeau's life, proclaiming that exactly 36 years and 168 days after he is born, a runaway comet will smash violently into Earth, destroying it.
Where can a book go from here, you may ask? The bitingly funny Currie Jr. manages to defy the conventional "end of the world is near" stereotype by taking his protagonist on a journey with many different side roads. Early sections follow the course of Junior’s evolving consciousness. He understands that his mother is loving but unreliable (later he grasps that she is, in fact, an alcoholic); his father tough and taciturn but devoted to his family (he works in a bakery 16 hours a day); his older brother, Rodney, is a bully. Then Junior, after being terrified by the sight of an atomic blast on television, transforms into a worried and serious child. “The world is so big, how can it be obliterated?” he asks at just age 5, establishing a pattern that will extend throughout the book.
Some of the sidetracks Currie Jr. puts Junior on involve: his brothers addiction and subsequent brain damage due to "that white powder" that he found in his uncles drawer (read: cocaine); his mothers' alcoholism; the cancer that his father fights with; his own alcoholism and deep depression stemming from everyone's dismissal of his "far-fetched theories"; his roller-coaster relationship with Amy, the girl of his dreams.
Above all “Everything Matters!” radiates pure confidence. The excitement that drives the reader from page to page is not just about the wonderfully written characters. It’s about seeing what Mr. Currie will try next.
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