Life is Everywhere

A multi-faceted, matryoshka doll of a novel which asks how far we are ever able to understand ourselves.

Manhattan, 2014. Erin Adamo is locked out of her apartment. Her husband has just left her and her keys are at her parents’ apartment, abandoned when she exited mid-dinner after her father–once again–lost control.

Erin takes refuge in the library of the university where she is a grad student. Her bag contains two manuscripts she’s written, along with a monograph by a faculty member who’s recently become embroiled in a bizarre scandal. Erin isn’t sure what she’s doing, but a small, mostly unconscious part of her knows: within these documents is a key she’s needed all along.

With unflinching precision, Life Is Everywhere captures emotional events that hover fitfully at the borders of visibility and intelligibility, showing how the past lives on, often secretly and at the expense of the present. Multifarious, mischievous, and deeply humane, Lucy Ives’s latest masterpiece rejoices in what a novel, and a self, carry.

'If Lucy Ives is as smart as her novel Life Is Everywhere, then I am in complete awe. The novel is challenging in all the best ways and an absolute joy to read. How many books in one and yet one book. This is great writing.' – Percival Everett

'Lucy Ives is a daring writer with a wicked sense of humor. She brilliantly observes society and culture, and invents stories only she could imagine.' – Lynne Tillman