Everything You Leave Behind
A depressed man learns much from his otherworldly experiences in the allegorical novel Everything You Leave Behind.
Weston Hayes Walker’s speculative novel Everything You Leave Behind is about a depressed man who witnesses pivotal moments of his alternate lives.
On his forty-fifth birthday, Vincent, whose effusive wife is key to his happiness, goes to work. It’s a job he detests. He arrives late to a merger conference so terrible that it prompts him to drink afterward. After a suicide attempt, he reincarnates at various stages of his life up until his present, when he wakes from his coma.
The novel is labyrinthine in its form and progression. It begins with Vincent’s midlife complaints related to his teenage daughter’s backtalk, work gossip, and his tyrannical boss. Still, his suicidal ideation comes as a surprise. It’s the first of several unexpected, catastrophic twists and audacious what-ifs. Vincent breaks a pull-up record in his college gym; he attends a wedding; he enters the back room of a nightclub. After a handful of reincarnations, death seems to be the predictable outcome.
The lengths of the book’s reincarnation scenes vary, though they are tied together by Vincent’s persistent attempts to change his past. Some such attempts get him into trouble; some lead to successes, as when he stands up to a college coach or when he treats his colleagues with respect and kindness. In no scenario does he fail; rather, Vincent’s odd, often drunken, situations take the form of celebrations of life’s strangeness.
The book’s tone is uneven, though. It sometimes thrills in the fantastical and sometimes is somber about the stakes of the situations at hand. Vincent laments, “I just always thought my life was going to be different. I pushed for years and years trying to make something of myself, and after a while I finally gave up.” He is advised to find his true north, and the implication that Vincent is being directed back to his present, armed with new insights to face its challenges, pulls attention forward. Indeed, there’s a sense of inevitability that Vincent will find success: As he passes through alternate versions of his past, he gains determination to love his family as they deserve. Indeed, as the book moves toward its ending, Vincent’s lucid dreams give way to something more substantial: his determination to fight for a better life.
A probing novel, Everything You Leave Behind is about a flailing man’s desire to lead a more fulfilling life.
Reviewed by
Mari Carlson
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
