This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! - Softcover

‘As sweet as it is inventive, profound as it is hilarious, unflinching as it is big-hearted.’
Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

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 of life becomes a surprising and revelatory journey into Harriet’s past.

There, amid the buffets and lounge singers, between the imagined appearances of her late husband and the very real arrival of her estranged daughter mid-way 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.

Part-dysfunctional love story, part exploration of the relationship between mothers and daughters, nothing is what it seems in this charming tale of what it truly means to begin again.

‘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 Saint Mazie

“A terrific novel, funny and moving, wistful and wise. Jonathan Evison’s writing crackles on the page.” —Jess Walter, bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins

Recently widowed Harriet Chance is shocked to learn that her late husband had planned a surprise Alaskan cruise before his death. Not someone who has ever been particularly adventurous, Harriet sets sail anyway, only to discover through a series of revelations that all is not as she thought it was. Amidst the endless buffets and tacky lounge singers, between the imagined appearance of her late husband and the very real arrival of her estranged daughter, Harriet is compelled to take a long look back, confronting the truth about her past with heart, humour and some ill-advised honesty.

New York Times¬–bestselling author Jonathan Evison has crafted a big-hearted novel with a supremely endearing heroine at its centre. Through Harriet, he paints a bittersweet portrait of an unforgettable woman with great warmth, wit and humanity. Part dysfunctional love story, part exploration of family relationships and part coming of old age, This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! is an utterly charming book about what it really means to begin again.