Trigger Warning: Please be advised that THESE THINGS HAPPEN by Michael Eon contains sensitive subjects, including suicide, self-harm, and alcoholism, which may be distressing for some readers.
Michael Eon’s debut novel, THESE THINGS HAPPEN, opens in 1995, in the harrowing aftermath of a botched suicide attempt. Max, the older brother of the novel’s protagonist, Daniel Zimmer, sits at the kitchen table, his hands clutching his pale cheeks as he moans in anguish. A fragment of his scalp and skull lies on the floor. From this unsettling tableau, the story winds back twenty years to 1970s Brooklyn, where Daniel and his older siblings—rebellious eldest brother Harry and emotionally fragile Max—dwell in the oppressive shadow of their abusive father, who bullies and torments his family. Daniel finds solace in his friendship with Brie Olsson, who suffers from severe asthma. Daniel’s complex relationship with Brie, which oscillates between platonic familiarity and romantic tension, becomes one of the central throughlines of this coming-of-age tale. As Daniel’s life unfurls over the years, he grapples with a legion of inner demons—from generational trauma and the burden of familial expectations to depression and alcoholism—that threaten to destroy him.
Moving back and forth between Daniel’s childhood, young adulthood (a gifted trumpet player, Daniel dreams of attending Julliard and joining the New York Philharmonic), and his 30s (which find him mired in addiction and estranged from Brie), THESE THINGS HAPPEN is an existential Bildungsroman that follows Daniel’s struggle to find a measure of self-forgiveness and transcend his spiritual darkness. Eon gracefully weaves together the novel’s multiple timelines, which serve to illuminate each other—bringing each to life with rich and evocative detail. Needle drops abound, from Led Zeppelin and The Ramones to Alice in Chains, and real-life historical events—including the tragic story of Karen Ann Quinlan (who became the center of the right-to-die movement in the 1970s and 80s) and the Son of Sam serial killings—form a recurring motif throughout the novel.
THESE THINGS HAPPEN is suffused with an ambivalent, deeply melancholic nostalgia that recalls the turbulent family dynamics of J.D. Salinger, the quiet despair of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, and the broken families of John Irving’s novels. However, Eon is less interested in dwelling on his characters’ miseries than charting the ways that they succeed—and fail—at overcoming the cycles of abuse and trauma that threaten to drag them into the abyss.
Less a story and more an experiential tapestry of interwoven lives and indelible emotional scars, Michael Eon’s THESE THINGS HAPPEN explores the inexplicable complexities of human connections with tenderness and profound empathy.
~Edward Sung for IndieReader