Tracing the nuances of a short-lived life, this involving and sympathetically written novel maintains a tone of finely judged tension between laughter and tears. Jonathon Bender had something to tell the world, but the world wouldn’t listen. However, he left behind him unsent letters addressed to relatives, friends, neighbors, coaches, teachers, classmates, professors, roommates, psychiatrists, employers, his younger self, former girlfriends, his ex-wife, a TV station, and God, among many others. This unsent correspondence forms the narrative of a remarkable life.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Occasionally a novel by a new writer will cause critics to choke with excitement. This is one." —Scotsman
"By turns hilarious and haunting—and always thrillingly deep, surprising, and pitch-perfect . . . confirms Kimball's reputation as one of our most supremely gifted and virtuosic renderers of the human predicament. It's as moving a novel as I have read in years." —Gary Lutz, author, Stories in the Worst Way
"I love this book, love the strangely detailed world that accumulates through letters, lists, yearbook quotes, and psychological evaluations. And I love the character of Jonathon Bender, the way he makes me so sad and also makes me laugh so hard. He will stay with me forever." —Jessica Anya Blau, author, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties
"Thank you for this book. What Jonathon Bender writes in his unsent letters are what each of us longs to say, what all of us have been saying our whole lives, just not out loud.” —Stephen Graham Jones, author, Demon Theory
“The page-turning urgency of a mystery and the thrilling formal inventiveness of the great epistolary novels. Jonathon Bender's magical letters to the world that never wrote to him are at once whimsical, anguished, funny, utterly engaging and, finally, unforgettable.” —Maud Casey, author, Genealogy
"A reader can only embrace the open-armed Dear Everybody . . . In Bender’s unsent letters of apology or thanks, Michael Kimball transforms the familiar into the strange again and the simplest confessions are made moments of sublime wonder. Hold on to this book." —Christine Schutt, author, Florida, a National Book Award finalist, and winner of the O. Henry Prize and Pushcart Prize
"Believable and tragic." —Baltimore Magazine
"Elegantly and eloquently written." —Star-Democrat
About the Author
Michael Kimball is the author of How Much of Us There Was and The Way the Family Got Away. He lives in Baltimore.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny and Heartbreaking,
By Becky Sharp (New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dear Everybody (Hardcover)
A friend told me that Dear Everybody was a great read and he is absolutely right. I couldn't put the novel down and read it through in two rushed sittings. The novel is about a man, Jonathan, who is writing letters to all of his family and friends, short, funny, beautiful, and wistful letters about his childhood, being a teenager, a young man, and married. They are suicide letters but the novelist makes it so that the reader feels the whole range of emotions -- often humor balanced with tender sadness-- throughout (the character talks about thinking he was the Burger King as a kid b/c of the paper crown he got). And the novel also includes other people -- his mother writing in her diary about her difficult marriage and concerns about her son, and Jonathan's ex-wife about how much she fell in love with him but also about how she couldn't be with him -- and things like the main character's college notebooks. There's so much going on in this novel, and it's done so well that it really captures your imagination. Once you finish you just want to start reading again (I did). The review in Time Out New York says all of this better than I can! But Dear Everybody is the best book I've read in years and I'm going to get my book club to read it. I highly recommend it.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Story, Great Read,
By Hank (new york) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dear Everybody (Hardcover)
A hauntingly beautiful, funny, and ultimately sad story of this one man who struggled to keep his place in the world. This is a great book.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
SO UNIQUE!,
By Simone "Simone" (U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dear Everybody (Hardcover)
A totally unique story told in a totally original way! I loved piecing together Jonathan's life through the bits I was given: Lists, letters, diary entries, receipts. There was a way in which it was mysterious, like a puzzle. But, then again, it was all right there in this very honest, open way.
You'll love it!
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