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.