This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!“Jonathan Evison is a ridiculously gifted storyteller: racing, breathless, and vibrant with his prose, hungry for personal truths, and clearly in love with the world around us all. That compassion and those writerly charms are deeply felt in This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!, an irresistible, inventive novel full of important ideas about how we live our lives as parents, children, partners, and human beings.” —Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins With Bernard, her husband of fifty-five years, now in the grave, seventy-eight-year-old Harriet Chance impulsively sets sail on an ill-conceived Alaskan cruise that her late husband had planned. But what she hoped would be a voyage leading to a new lease on life becomes a surprising and revelatory journey into Harriet’s past. There, amid the overwhelming buffets and the incessant lounge singers, between the imagined appearances of her late husband and the very real arrival of her estranged daughter midway through the cruise, Harriet is forced to take a long look back, confronting the truth about pivotal events that changed the course of her life. And in the process she discovers that she’s been living the better part of that life under entirely false assumptions. In This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! Jonathan Evison has crafted a bighearted novel with an endearing heroine at the helm. Through Harriet, he paints a bittersweet portrait of a postmodern everywoman, her story told with great warmth, humanity, and humor. Part dysfunctional love story, part poignant exploration of the mother-daughter relationship, nothing is what it seems in this tale of acceptance, reexamination, and forgiveness. |
Contents
November 4 1936 Harriet at Zero | 1 |
August 11 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 4 |
September 9 1957 Harriet at Twenty | 7 |
April 6 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 10 |
August 15 2015 Bernard Deceased Day 277 | 14 |
April 16 1959 Harriet at TwentyTwo | 18 |
August 13 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 21 |
September 11 1988 Harriet at FiftyOne | 29 |
May 7 1955 Harriet at Eighteen | 163 |
September 17 1965 Harriet at TwentyEight | 166 |
August 20 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 169 |
November 4 1966 Harriet at Thirty | 178 |
August 21 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 181 |
June 9 2014 Harriet at SeventySeven | 187 |
August 21 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 190 |
December 25 1972 Harriet at ThirtySix | 196 |
August 13 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 32 |
December 22 1959 Harriet at TwentyThree | 42 |
August 13 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 45 |
September 8 1962 Harriet at TwentyFive | 52 |
August 19 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 55 |
May 1 1986 Harriet at FortyNine | 62 |
August 19 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 65 |
December 19 1953 Harriet at Seventeen | 75 |
August 19 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 78 |
November 19 2014 Harriet at SeventyEight | 88 |
August 19 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 91 |
April 16 1973 Harriet at ThirtySix | 97 |
August 19 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 99 |
August 18 1965 Harriet at TwentyEight | 107 |
September 6 1989 Harriet at FiftyTwo | 110 |
August 19 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 114 |
May 18 1980 Harriet at FortyThree | 117 |
August 19 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 120 |
October 1 2013 Harriet at SeventySix | 130 |
August 20 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 133 |
August 20 2015 Bernard deceased Day 282 | 143 |
February 14 2014 Harriet at SeventySeven | 146 |
March 17 2014 Harriet at SeventySeven | 149 |
April 14 1973 Harriet at ThirtySix | 151 |
November 4 1942 Harriet at Six | 154 |
August 20 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 157 |
August 22 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 199 |
June 21 2014 Harriet at SeventySeven | 205 |
August 22 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 208 |
March 25 2006 Harriet at SixtyNine | 213 |
August 22 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 216 |
July 1 1966 Harriet at TwentyNine | 221 |
August 22 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 224 |
July 1 1966 Harriet at TwentyNine | 227 |
August 22 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 230 |
August 22 2015 Bernard deceased Day 284 | 234 |
March 13 2003 Harriet at SixtySix | 238 |
September 9 1986 Harriet at FortyNine | 241 |
August 22 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 244 |
August 17 1946 Harriet at Nine | 250 |
August 17 1946 Harriet at Nine | 253 |
August 23 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 257 |
November 4 2014 Harriet at SeventyEight | 262 |
August 23 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 265 |
November 8 2014 Harriet at SeventyEight | 272 |
August 24 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 275 |
July 4 1938 Harriet at One | 279 |
August 25 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 282 |
August 26 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 290 |
August 26 2015 Harriet at SeventyEight | 292 |
Acknowledgments | 295 |
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Common terms and phrases
anyway August August 19 August 22 banana belt bathroom begins Bernard Chance birthday breath Brylcreem Bubbleator buffet C’mon cabin can’t Candidate Chance Caroline’s Charlie Fitzsimmons Charmichael Clark clutching crab legs cruise damn darling daughter dear didn’t doesn’t Donna Mae door dress Dwight everything eyes face Father Mullinix Fikru Fuck glass gotta hair hand happen Harriet at Seventy-Eight Harriet Chance Harriet feels Harriet turns Harriet’s heart he’s hear heaven’s sake heavens husband i’ve love seat Mildred Honeycutt Mildred’s minutes monkey’s fist mother never Nudge nudge okay past purse remember says Caroline says Harriet Sequim she’s Sherwood Arms Skagway Skip’s smile sorry stop Sunny Acres sure talk tell Thank there’s they’re thing Tlingit trying Vicodin What’s wheel wine woman won’t wouldn’t Y’all Yessir you’ll you’re you’ve young Zuiderdam