All the Secrets of the World: A Novel Paperback – March 21, 2023

Lorena, the child of undocumented parents, struggles with coming of age, America’s class structure, and the awful unfairness of life in this dissection of 1980s California.Almond manages to squeeze a Latina immigrant and her children living under the radar, a wealthy man by marriage who studies scorpions, throwback Mormons living in Mexico, and Nancy Reagan all into a page-turner of a story about class, race, justice and growing up poor, brown and female in America. Not only do these disparate elements come together in a fast-paced plot, but Almond’s deft writing makes for a truly satisfying read. That teenage Lorena winds up having to manage her family’s all-too-familiar predicament on her own is only one of the tragedies the characters get mired in. Read this book for Lorena, though. She sparkles!

For those looking for the thrill, this story is a more-than-satisfying-gotta-get-back-to-that-book-to-find-out-what-happens read. For those looking for craft models to earmark, post-it-note, this one is in the business of providing countless examples of how effective and essential a disembodied narrator can be as well as how to write close third POV characters (struggling with power, betrayal, class, race, sexual attraction, jealousy, fear). For those seeking to look back and interrogate the complex Reagan years, we get a fascinating and unexpected Nancy Reagan voice. For those interested in “place-based” books that really set you instantly into a new or known spot… But most importantly, for those who need a great new character to root for, worry about, and find immeasurably inspiring, there’s 13-year-old Lorena Saenz who helped me remember the first brushes of intense infatuation, the need to be seen, and the yearning to feel adult long before one’s ready. I loved her so much and wanted her to be brave enough and savvy enough to meet her goals (both those she’s dreamed of and those essential to the survival of her and her family).Just read it. See for yourself. Damn.

Steve Almond's novel is wonderfully complex—complex in a good way. It is not one of those self-absorbed books where you have to try to figure out what the author’s driving at; it’s complex in the way it interweaves characters from different times and places—from different worlds, it would seem, except that they are part of a tapestry whose pattern reveals itself jaggedly, like the lives they lead.Complex, but a very fun read. A police procedural, with a psychological twist or two, binds the narrative to a coherent order that would otherwise be hard to maintain. Not since television’s “Wired” have I seen different social levels so effectively brought into a common narrative. Steve Almond renders narratives from whole different worlds—Nancy Reagan’s political/social milieu; the fraught treks of undocumented immigrants; affluent suburbia’s boredom and decadence; a professor’s scientific passion, dredged in shameful lust; the excitement and drudgery of police work; the uncanny mixture of teenage emotions and social learning; and more (believe it or not). He melds these narratives into a coherent whole by means of a method—I’ll call it “tell, don’t show”--that put me off, at first, until I saw how it served the overall story. For the most part, the author writes well and draws his characters easily; we understand who they are, why they act as they do, and how the world seems to them. But once in a while, he seems to interrupt the flow of the book by flat out explaining a character, like, what happened to them as a child, and how that experience produced certain personality traits. The very kind of writing that might earn a remonstrance from a creative writing prof: “Show, don’t tell!” But as I read along, quite enjoying the trip, I came to rely upon these didactic interludes; they weren’t too numerous or too long, they only cropped up as needed, and I found them to be judiciously planted stakes that supported the diverse and variegated life stories that hang together in this big story about what scorpions might be up to at night, hunting and hiding, but glowing under UV light.

Like the scorpions central to his novel, Steve Almond is simply a more attuned emotion instrument than most of us can ever hope to be. With insight and empathy, he inhabits a diverse range of characters, spanning genders, races, classes, and backgrounds.The pacing is taut and propulsive. Once you pick up All the Secrets of the World, you’ll have to keep reading. The threads of its characters weave together like the strands in a spider’s web—and you know that, caught in that net, bad things are going to happen to good people. (And maybe bad people.) This story is at once literary social commentary and thriller. Touching and disturbing and eerie and masterful. Five stars!

I am not crazy about reading (or even thinking) about scorpions. But the narrative of this book uses the scorpion as a character, a metaphor, a fascinating scientific study, even a cultural element. I loved the intertwined paths that feel stunningly believable and sadly tragic. Well worth the read. I'm still thinking about the layers and people in the book (and even the scorpions!!!). And that's a very good thing.

It was a good page turner, hard to put down. Was well written, good characters, good stories, but goes down some weird stories with Nancy Reagan, if you could just remove that from the book would have been a lot better. That part was just odd

An incredible first novel from an amazing writer. I flew through this, driven to the incredible climax. An awesome book.