Overview

"An eccentric music professor struggles with grief and guilt and questions the American justice system after his mother accidentally chokes to death on a wonton from a Chinese restaurant. Someday Everything Will All Make Sense follows Luther van der Loon, an eccentric professor of medieval music at a New York university, as he navigates the stages of grief after his 62-year-old mother chokes on a wonton from a Chinese take-out. Luther invokes the American justice system against the restaurant whose ""sloppy methods"" he blames for his mother's death. He blames himself for failing to perform the Heimlich, a maneuver so simple that a child of six or seven could execute it. Luther, who spent the entirety of his forty earthly years living with his mother in a co-op apartment in Tudor City, New York, must learn to conceive of a world in which his mother is no longer present. Luther finds redemption in music as he plans the annual symposium for his oddball group of early music colleagues. They believe, like Kepler and the greatest thinkers of the Renaissance, that music is to be constructed according to the divine Pythagorean ratios. Slowly, and with the help of his therapist girlfriend, Cecilia, Luther gropes toward resolution. The novel speaks to the universality of loss and the struggle to make sense of the nonsensical. Fans of John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces will appreciate the maladroitness of the protagonist and the dark humor woven into the narrative, as will readers of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, who will appreciate the artful and in-depth evocation of the process of grieving."

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9781735929279

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Reviews

"""LaHines' tale paints a robust picture of a suffering neurotic stuck in his sorrow, her protagonist recalling a Laurence Sterne character. . .. An admirable addition to that venerable category [of] novels to find humor in loss.""- Kirkus Reviews ""It's rare to find a character like Luther van der Loon who makes such a rich and lasting impression--so vividly wounded, exuberant in characterization. Luther embodies the anxious, angst-ridden neurotic we are afraid we will become, or maybe who we aspire to be. In his grief over his mother's accidental choking vis-à-vis death, his obsession with what is the point of life is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. I could read this novel a hundred times and never tire of it."" - Amy E. Wallen, author of When We Were Ghouls ""An original and very funny novel about a man's obsessive longing and guilt after his mother accidentally chokes on wonton soup. We follow the endearing protagonist through a period of mourning, cleverly interwoven with musical theory and an attempt to sue the Chinese take-out restaurant, all brought to a hilarious finale with a last symposium on medieval music."" - Sheila Kohler, author of numerous award-winning novels ""Carol LaHines' novel combines early music, Chinese food, litigation, and love in a hilarious defense of individuality. Luther's irrationality makes him both laughable and lovable. His early music obsession offers metaphors for love and loss. Someday Everything Will Make Sense is a comedy celebrating transformation that happens in its own due course."" - Compulsive Reader ""Someday Everything Will All Make Sense's literary and artistic survey of a neurotic who is forced to release ties to his mother that perhaps should have been loosened during her life will appeal to readers who enjoy psychological and musical inspections. The dark humor overlay is surprising, astute, and revealing, all in one. Someday Everything Will All Make Sense is highly recommended for readers of family relationship tales who will find this particular survey of loss and recovery pointed and revealing as Luther comes full circle in a musical and relationship compromise with survivor guilt."" - Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review"

Author Information

Carol LaHines' debut novel, Someday Everything Will All Make Sense, was a finalist for the Nilsen Prize for a First Novel and an American Fiction Award. Her second novel, The Vixen Amber Halloway, is forthcoming from Regal House in 2024. Her fiction has appeared in literary journals including Fence, Hayden's Ferry Review, Denver Quarterly, Cimarron Review, The Literary Review, The Laurel Review, North Dakota Quarterly, South Dakota Review, The South Carolina Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Sycamore Review, Permafrost, redivider, Literary Orphans, and Literal Latte. She is the recipient of the Lamar York Prize for Fiction. Her short stories and novellas have also been finalists for the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction from Sarabande Books, the David Nathan Meyerson fiction prize, the New Letters short story award, and the Disquiet Literary Prize, among others.

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