Everything Must Go

With deceptive simplicity New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Flock brings Henry Powell's poignantly familiar story to life: he is the friend we have all known, living in a family curiously similar to our own. Through Flock's deft, compassionate hand, we ultimately understand Henry, and how time can become such a peculiar character in all our lives -- a constant companion that is both friend and foe.

Compared to some, Henry Powell's life has been lucky, is inauspicious: a glorious senior year of high school, a football scholarship, an undemanding job that pays the bills, a roof over his head, friends to share a beer with. Yet Henry is impossibly stuck, unable to reconcile the dreams and expectations of his youth with the reality of the unassuming, vaguely dissatisfied man he's become.

Called back from college because of family issues, he had temporarily resumed his job at the men's clothing store where he'd worked since high school. But as weeks turn into months and months into years, Baxter's becomes Henry's only window to the world, where he marks time by milestones of his former classmates' lives. But his day-to-day measured existence inadvertently conceals the fracture that has caused the disintegration of his family, one that will ultimately reveal the Henry that might have been.

Gently humorous, achingly sad, yet perpetually hopeful, Everything Must Go is a powerful exploration of a life that has yet to be lived, a story of longing, missed opportunities and the unraveling of the quintessential American family.


Genre: Literary Fiction