Small World by Jonathan Evison
/
Small World
By Jonathan Evison
Dutton, 2022
Walter Bergen is one day from retirement, a situation that always ends well in fiction. It’s not long then before Walter makes a decision that impacts not only his life, but the lives of everyone around him. Small World by Jonathan Evison follows four families on a journey spanning from the 1850s to 2019. These families—including immigrants, Native Americans, and an enslaved man—collide in unexpected ways as they struggle to find their place in America in both the past and the present.
Readers meet Walter in 2019 as he thinks about his life, his time as an Amtrak train engineer, and a world that seems to be leaving him behind. But the Bergen family story really begins in 1851 when twins Nora and Finnegan Bergen make the dangerous crossing from Cork, Ireland to America hoping to pass through the “Golden Door” and find a land free of famine and fever, “For it was said that beyond the Golden Door, anything was possible. This was the promise of America.” The Bergens come to New York with the intention of meeting up with their cousins, but when they arrive their cousins are nowhere to be found. From there, readers follow the Bergens westward across America as Nora and Finnegan try to make their way in this new world.
In 2019, Brianna and Malik Flowers prepare for Malik’s upcoming basketball tournament in Seattle. Malik is a gifted player and dedicated student who devotes his time to basketball practice, studying with his tutor, and mentoring disadvantaged youth. His mother Brianna is doing everything in her power to set him up for success, because she knows he’ll have to work harder than other kids to succeed, “Because the playing field wasn’t level and never has been, at least not for the Flowerses, not since her forebearers had dared to free themselves from bondage 170 years ago.” Back in 1851, Brianna’s ancestor George strives to redefine himself and make a life outside the bonds of slavery.
Luyu’s story begins in a different sort of captivity. Luyu was adopted by a family of Methodists after the massacre at Sutter’s Mill, and they’re nice enough. But what Luyu really wants is freedom. She yearns to reconnect with the land and her people, the Miwok. One day on a trip to town, Luyu meets a man named John Tully, and the two resolve to travel together. They change each other’s lives forever as they traverse Northern California looking for a place to call home. In 2019 Laila Tully is living in Red Bluff, California and ready to run from an abusive relationship. Leaning on friends and family for help, Laila makes a break for freedom.
Wu Chen is a Chinese immigrant who comes to America during the California Gold Rush. Chen begins his American adventure working a claim in Northern California before he is forced to strike out in a new direction. In the present we follow the Chen-Murphys, a family of four living a life of privilege, comfort, and first-world problems in San Francisco. Jenny has everything she could ever dream of—a high-powered job as a corporate consultant (with Amtrak naturally), a robust investment portfolio, and a home in the Bay Area. Yet she still finds herself, “…miserable in a way that wasn’t likely to change. And given the advantages she’d had, given the resources bequeathed to her, there was really no accounting for how she’d arrived at this place.”
Throughout the novel, Evison takes readers on a journey to discover just how interconnected these characters are, contrasting the American ideals of individualism and self-reliance with those of community and togetherness. Each character is where they are in life both because of those who came before them and because of the people they meet, however tangentially, along the way.
Small World is a story of contrasts. It is about captivity and freedom, success and failure. It is about striving for something better. It is about community and the ways in which we help and hurt each other, intentionally or by accident. It is a book about America, a land of opportunity, a “Golden Door” which you need only pass through to find your path to success. But America is also a place that doesn’t care if you make it, as Laila Tully notes while on her way to her new life:
How could America be the greatest country in the world when it couldn’t even take care of its own? It didn’t seem to matter whether you were born here or you came here, whether you’d been here since the beginning of time or you’d just gotten here yesterday; unless you could afford to buy in, America didn’t seem to give two shits about you.
Despite this grim observation, or perhaps because of it, Small World is also about hope for the future. Hope that we can change things—that we can help each other in ways both big and small. And in this time of polarization, we could all use a reminder of how connected we really are.
Amberlee Venters is a freelance editor and writer living in Northern California.