-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Jesse Browner's dazzling new novel records a single day in the life of Wes, a seventeen-year-old who attends Manhattan's elite Dalton School and lives in Greenwich Village in a dilapidated town house with his terminally ill mother, distant father and beloved younger sister. In the course of one day everything will happen to Wes: he will lose his virginity to the wrong girl and break his own heart, try to meet a Monday morning deadline for a paper on War and Peace, and prepare an elaborate supper he hopes will reunite his family. Wes struggles through the day deep in thoughts of sex, love, Beatles lyrics, friendship, God and French cuisine - a typical teenager with an atypical mind, a memorable young man who comes to the poignant understanding of how fragile but attainable personal happiness can be.
Everything Happens Today is funny, moving, generous and exhilarating. With a classic structure that nods, inevitably, to Mrs. Dalloway and characters worthy of comparison to those created by J.D. Salinger, Everything Happens Today will enchant young adults who see themselves in the story as well as adult readers who will be captured by the deeply sympathetic characters and the acute feel for the way we live now. Most readers will want it never to be over.
"Thankfully, Browner avoids a saccharine resolution, opting instead to let Wes's struggles work as a meditation on life, love, and disappointment." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Browner... has crafted a stupendous, thought-provoking, devilishly delicious novel that reads like Zen Koan meets Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with some modern "english" that sets the plate spinning. Highly recommended." - Library Journal
"A light, modern and keen look at the discord between whimsy and prudence." - Kirkus Reviews
"[T]here are no chapter breaks, which makes for an occasionally claustrophobic reading experience. On the other hand, the novel does capture Wes' stream-of-consciousness and the river of events that flows through his day. This will be catnip to readers interested in critical thinking and epistemology but slow going for most others." - Booklist
This information about Everything Happens Today 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.
Jesse Browner is the author of four books including the novels Conglomeros, Turnaway, and The Uncertain Hour. He has also translated a number of notable books including the award winning Celine: A Biography. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and two daughters. Find him online at www.jessebrowner.com.
If you liked Everything Happens Today, try these:
by Carvell Wallace
Published 2025
A transformative memoir that reimagines the conventions of love and posits a radical vision for healing.
by Jen Ferguson
Published 2024
In her remarkable second novel following her Governor General's Award-winning debut, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, Jen Ferguson writes about the hurt of a life stuck in past tense, the hum of connections that cannot be severed, and one week in a small, snowy town that changes everything.
by Trent Dalton
Published 2020
An utterly wonderful debut novel of love, crime, magic, fate and a boy's coming of age, set in 1980s Australia and infused with the originality, charm, pathos, and heart of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
