Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2023
368 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Paperback Original.
Publication Information
A small, declining town in Ohio. A family bereaved by terrible loss. A searing narrative about how American lives touch each other across divides both real and imagined...
Set in failing small town in central Ohio, The Heart of It All asks how one manages, in an America of increasing unsurety, to find a sense of family and community.
Focusing on the members of three families: the Baileys, a white family who have put down deep roots in the community; the Marwats, an immigrant family that owns the town's largest employer; and the Shaws, especially young Anthony, an outsider whose very presence gently shakes the town's understanding of itself.
A gorgeous, stirring novel in the classic vein of Richard Ford, Marilynne Robinson, Richard Russo, and Kent Haruf, The Heart of It All asks the reader to consider an America both divided and bound by its differences.
"Recalls Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool...Kiefer has a sympathetic and probing eye that gives his characters solidity, kindling empathy and anxiety...A thoughtful look at those just getting by from a writer who deserves to be known." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Sublimely crafted...an exquisitely wrought and insightful look at how people deal with misfortune and inequities." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"For anyone who believes, as I do, that the best hope for our fractured country is local, not national, Christian Kiefer's new novel The Heart of it All will provide a welcome balm for the spirit. Here are people worth spending time with, not because they're perfect, but because they're not. What's wrong with them isn't nearly as consequential as how hard they fight for a better life, and not just for themselves. You set the book down and think, 'This is what we're made of.' Or should be." —Richard Russo, author of Somebody's Fool
"Deeply moving and beautifully written. I couldn't put it down." —Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing
"With The Heart of It All, the always brilliant Christian Kiefer offers readers a portrait of contemporary America that is deeply insightful, often surprising, and tenderly, beautifully observed." —Lauren Groff, author of Matrix
This information about The Heart of It All was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Christian Kiefer has a PhD in American literature from the University of California–Davis and directs the low-residency MFA at Ashland University. The author of The Animals and The Infinite Tides, he lives with his family in Placer County, California.
Name Pronunciation
Christian Kiefer: KEEF-er
The Flower Sisters
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When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
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