Everything

May 3, 2010
The disaffection from a purposeless life unites the characters in Canty’s painstakingly crafted novel of backcountry Montana. When longtime friends RL and June memorialize the 11th anniversary of June’s husband’s death, they’re confronted with the emptiness of their lives. RL seeks new beginnings with an old acquaintance undergoing treatment for cancer, while June contemplates selling her house. Into the mix is added RL’s sweet but depressive college-age daughter, who engages in an ill-advised affair with an older man beleaguered by a dull marriage. Though the narratives rarely cross, Canty’s adept handling of structure and themes makes them all feel like part of the same conversation, and the few points of intersection resonate sharply. An able minimalist, Canty (Nine Below Zero) is skillful at evoking the weight of a lifetime’s quiet angst in mundane moments. The story offers few moments of grace for its luckless characters, but it’s full of life, and the occasional bright spots are hard-won and authentic.

May 15, 2010
Canty (Where the Money Went, 2009, etc.) continues to hone his skills in creating nuanced and complex love relationships.

The narrative begins with RL and June's annual ritual of going down to the river and drinking Johnnie Walker Red to celebrate the birthday of Taylor, RL's friend and June's husband, who died 11 years earlier. June, a hospice worker, is about ready to move on and find a new direction for her life, while RL, who owns an outdoors shop, is still not sure what shape his life is in. He's divorced and has one child, 19-year-old Layla. She's both a college student and an outdoorswoman, and is finding herself dissatisfied with her current love interest, Daniel, eight years her senior, a graduate student and would-be poet who's serially unfaithful. More to her liking is Edgar, who works for RL and is an artist manqu. Edgar has a wife and daughter—and another on the way—but he and Layla become seriously involved, and Layla finds herself pregnant with his child. Even these relationships become more convoluted when Betsy, RL's girlfriend from way back when, needs lodging when she goes in to a local hospital for chemotherapy treatments for cancer. Both cynical and lost, RL takes up with Betsy again and finds himself pulled into a love relationship that involves him at a deeper level than he'd anticipated. Amid the drinking and futility emerge some hints of hope. At the end Edgar has an epiphany arising from the evanescence of a cloud,"a ragged cloud of white against the dark spring sky, a bit of vapor, of nothing, and yet he recognized it: the start of something." Other characters are able to tap into this same assurance.

While a summary of Canty's novel reads like a soap opera, his deft handling of complicated love relationships and self-anguish raises the narrative to a more exalted level.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2010
In the opening pages of this new book by Canty ("Nine Below Zero"), RL is sitting on a riverbank with his friend June and talking about her dead husband on the anniversary of what would have been his 50th birthday. What follows is the intensely personal story of June, RL, and his daughter Layla showing the haphazard nature of life and how we deal with the bad things that happen. June, wanting to start over, is considering selling her house, while the divorced RL wants to shelter an old girlfriend undergoing chemotherapy. Events unfold at various riversides in Montana, as people fish and smoke cigars while enjoying the spectacle that is naturean elemental setting that highlights the plights of the characters, all knowingly described in Canty's liquid dialog. Canty creates a vibrant sense of the West that makes one appreciate the now. VERDICT Heartily recommended for book clubs and for readers who enjoy Western fiction.Henry Bankhead, Los Gatos P.L, CA

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2010
Montanans June and RL are linked by their affection for Taylor, who died several years ago just shy of his fiftieth birthday. Taylor was Junes husband, her one and only true love; he was also RLs best friend. The survivors must now go on with their lives. For June, it means abandoning the grief shes been clinging to for too long. For RL, its enjoying time with his daughter, Layla, who will soon head back to the University of Washington for the fall term. As the novel progresses, RL finds himself entangled in a complicated relationship with Betsy, a onetime flame who is battling cancer. June, too, finds herself in the throes of romance with the real-estate agent who appraised her house. (She has mixed feelings about selling the multimillion dollar property, though having that kind of money certainly wouldnt hurt.) The plot of Cantys latest work (after Where the Money Went, 2009) tends to ramble, but the novel deftly renders the stark beauty of Montana and the free-spirited souls who inhabit it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)