This is a young writer’s masterpiece.
Twenty-something wordsmith and storyteller Chase Connor delivers his 18th novel and it’s an extraordinary one. This critic ranks it as his best. “Between Enzo & the Universe” is a highly entertaining and emotional (have tissues ready) existential meditation on family and a young man’s search for his place in the universe.
This novel deserves to earn Connor a large audience and wide critical favor. Pass the word, please. You read it here first.
At 220 pages, this fiction novel is impressive from page 1. Connor writes in a lean and lithe style. He chooses the exact words necessary to best express every feeling and accurately describe every scene. I love writers who understand less is more and tell a concise yarn.
The story is simple in plot but complex in ideas and emotions.
Enzo is twenty years old, living in Montreal. He is born in France but moves to Canada as a child with his father, mother, grandmother, brother Noe and sister Ila. His parents were approaching menopause and had spent years trying to conceive a child when, finally, Enzo arrives. Baby Enzo is born with a brain tumor that is benign but causes dangerous seizures. Some of the boy’s childhood is spent in hospitals where doctors cut open Enzo’s head hoping to surgically eliminate the seizure risk.
Hope is a recurring theme in Enzo’s universe.
Enzo is delighted when he learns he will get a brother. And then a sister. The parents adopt Noe, a Black boy from French colonial Africa, who lives with (what I would consider, severe) Autistic Spectrum Disorder and a breathing ailment. The parents adopt Ila, who lives with Downs Syndrome. Enzo is also close to his paternal grandmother who is a native of Cambodia.
One of the book’s emotional treasures is the protagonist’s relationship with his adopted brother and sister. Enzo has been blessed with abundant humanity. Our young hero goes to war with every obstacle and antagonist that attempts to treat brother Noe and sister Ila like second-class citizens.
The family sextet moves from France to Canada when father accepts a promising work opportunity. In France, they are comfortable, middle class, not wealthy by any means but not wanting, and very Catholic. Enzo describes how most of his youthful Christmas holidays are lived at church.
But now in Montreal, Enzo is an outsider. His native French is not the Montreal vernacular, and his English speaking and writing are considered weak and looked down upon in this bilingual city. People on the street hear Enzo’s French, or his English, and call him “foreigner,” or often, even worse epithets.
Things fall apart for Enzo and his family in Montreal. His dad’s job is not so great after all, and things spiral. As Enzo becomes a young adult, he finds himself living alone and practically penniless. He sweeps a tiny classroom above a Thai restaurant just to attend English As Second Language classes there twice a week, part of a Sisyphean struggle to become true Quebecois.
The reader will not give Enzo good odds of success in Montreal. It’s as if the universe doesn’t really want him there. Enzo’s doomed efforts in Montreal might be apparent to the reader, but not always to Enzo. There is no quitting in Enzo. No giving up. Enzo is hope. The antagonist of our story is “modern life.” It’s Enzo versus the mean and cruel twists and turns dealt by the invisible guiding forces of the universe.
The chapters alternate, mostly, between one autumn night in Enzo’s life and the events that precede, the circumstances of his family’s unraveling and the reason Enzo is marooned in these desperate straits.
Our story begins in Enzo’s present, with the sneers he receives from the other students at EASL class and the money the teacher gives him, mostly out of pity, to sweep up the classroom.
After class, Enzo discovers that his coat is stolen from the Thai restaurant, and that coat is one of his very few possessions. The coat is heavy in sentimental feeling for Enzo. And the Canada night air is cold and unfriendly.
Enzo could earn some quick bucks by allowing a creepy dude to unzip his fly. God knows Enzo needs the money. He also wants to go to the city’s gorgeous Basilica and have a talk with God. But necessity, and likely fate, send Enzo to a street market festival in search of a cheap coat.
To paraphrase Shakespeare and quote Willy Wonka, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.” Enzo does such a deed in this chilly outdoor market, and it costs him the coat he needs so badly. To quote George Bailey in “It’s A Wonderful Life”: “That’s what you get for praying.”
Enzo refuses to give up, no matter what tragedies and obstacles confront him, in his quest to find his place in the universe. Maybe he needs some help.
And his good deed brings Enzo together with a 39-year-old man named Peter, an American in Montreal for only that night. Enzo lost the coat he badly needs, but over the next hours he finds friendship that he might need just a little bit more. Love outlasts ephemeral and perishable thread and cloth in this universe.
Enzo and Peter get to know each other through simple rituals of chaste companionship, hours exploring cold late-night Montreal on foot. There is a pig-out feast. There are donuts. There are colorful M&Ms. There are gorgeous windowpanes at Notre Dame de Montreal Basilica. There is illegal entry at a gated city park. Just simple stuff, but lovely, in all its ordinariness. Their activities might be pedestrian, but it allows the prose to focus on the verbal dance between Enzo and Peter. Peter must be on a plane back to America the next day. The men are practical about the brevity of their acquaintance but there might just be a spark of fated serious romance in their Montreal dawn. As the story ends, Enzo’s problems are not solved, by any means, but his unwavering hope has pushed him past despair into a future fat with happy possibilities.
This is a deeply romantic book. Capital R, romantic. It is not a sexual tome, in the traditional sense, unless the reader thinks that feelings and emotions are sexy. This reviewer does, and by that estimation, “Enzo” is damn sexy.
It’s an existential journey. It is M&Ms and donuts, not the stuff of high adventure, but Enzo grasps that the greatest adventure of all is the one we take deep into our hearts and our minds, and that is the adventure a-foot in this beautifully written odyssey into the chambers of the human heart.
This novel is the debut publication of a new imprint, The Lion Fish Press. And what an amazing coming-out party. This is the sort of novel that fancy New York publishers would be fighting over. I hope this novel is a beacon of what to expect from this new press. And I hope this book finds the enormous audience it deserves and that it is remembered for 2020 best-of lists and year-end literary awards.
In the novel, Peter asks Enzo if he wants to “live or exist?” Prior to their meeting, I think Enzo was only existing. By the end of Chase Connor’s book, I was asking myself this same existential question. Trust this reviewer, Chase Connor’s book will inspire you to “live.”
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
![Between Enzo and the Universe (Enzo and Peter Book 1) by [Chase Connor]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51rlGN0nc3L._SY346_.jpg)
Follow the Author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
| Price | New from | Used from |
|
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial | |
|
Audio CD, CD, Unabridged
"Please retry" | $24.04 | — |
- Read with Our Free App
-
Audiobook
$0.00 - 3 New from $60.81
- 2 Used from $13.49 4 New from $14.99
- 2 New from $24.04
All 2 for you in this series
See full series
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 12, 2022
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 23, 2020
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 11, 2020
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 24, 2020
Top reviews from other countries
Kindle Customer
A great author
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 8, 2020Betsy
Do You Choose to Live or Exist?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 14, 2020Kindle Customer
A provoking novel.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 24, 2020
