The Heart of It All

“The Heart of It All somehow manages to pull and push ferociously without ever hurting. Christian Kiefer has created an absolutely beautiful book unafraid of our fear. Astonishing.” — Kiese Laymon, author, Heavy: A Memoir and Long Division: A Novel

 “Deeply moving and beautifully written. I couldn’t put it down.” —Jesmyn Ward, author, Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones

"If you want to find out the kind of novel that an offspring of Richard Russo and Alice Munro would write, look no further. Christian is a great writer." —Rabih Alameddine, author of The Wrong End of the Telescope

"Set in a crumbling small town in the Ohio Rust Belt, The Heart of It All, should be required reading not only for anyone wanting to understand our country as it exists today, with all its hatred, divisiveness, and economic disparity, but also for those who wish to know how to be a decent human being even as the American Dream recedes further and further into the past.  It is a truly beautiful achievement." - Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time & The Heavenly Table                                                                                                                                      

"This beautifully structured ensemble novel is Altmanesque in its complex, subtle intertwining of the lives of small-town Ohio factory workers and their families. Bringing together a diverse variety of voices, Kiefer weaves together a haunting, heartbreaking and empathetic portrait of contemporary America."—Dan Chaon, author of Sleepwalk

"Kiefer deftly lulls you into his characters’ lives, afloat in their isolation, before they swell into a cresting, spangled wave powered by pain and angst, that sweeps you ashore waiting to exhale." -- Musharraf Ali Farooqi, author of Between Clay and Dust


"With The Heart of It All, the always brilliant Christian Kiefer offers readers a portrait of contemporary America that is deeply insightful, often surprising, and tenderly, beautifully observed." —Lauren Groff, author of Matrix

"For anyone who believes, as I do, that the best hope for our fractured country is local, not national, Christian Kiefer’s new novel The Heart of it All will provide a welcome balm for the spirit.  Here are people worth spending time with, not because they’re perfect, but because they’re not.  What’s wrong with them isn’t nearly as consequential as how hard they fight for a better life, and not just for themselves.  You set the book down and think, ‘This is what we’re made of.’  Or should be."—Richard Russo, author of Somebody’s Fool