In her sophomore novel “Everybody Says It’s Everything,” Xhenet Aliu crafts a narrative that is as much about the spaces between people as it is about the connections that bind them. Following her award-winning debut “Brass,” Aliu returns with a story that unravels conventional notions of family, identity, and belonging through the lives of adopted twins Drita and Pete DiMeo. Set primarily in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1999, with significant flashbacks to earlier decades, the novel explores the complexities of immigrant experiences, adoption, and the elusive nature of “home.”
The twins, born in Albania but raised by Italian-American parents in Connecticut, have drifted apart as adults. Drita has abandoned her graduate studies to care for their wheelchair-bound adoptive mother Jackie, while Pete has been missing for three years, leaving behind his girlfriend Shanda and their young son Dakota. When Shanda and Dakota unexpectedly reappear in Waterbury, Drita embarks on a search for her brother that uncovers surprising truths about their adoption and connections to the Kosovo War.
Masterful Character Development Amidst Cultural Displacement
Aliu’s greatest strength lies in her ability to create fully realized characters whose flaws and virtues coexist in messy, authentic ways. Drita’s sense of displacement—both geographically and emotionally—permeates the narrative. She’s abandoned a promising academic career at Columbia to return to Waterbury, a declining industrial town she’d once been desperate to escape. Her resentment toward Pete for leaving her to shoulder family responsibilities alone feels palpable and justified.
Pete, meanwhile, emerges as more complex than the delinquent Drita believes him to be. Through his perspective, we see a young man desperate for connection and belonging, willing to risk his life for a cause he barely understands if it might give him purpose. His relationship with Valon, an Albanian preparing to fight in Kosovo, provides him the fraternal bonds he’s lost with Drita.
Secondary characters are equally well-drawn:
- Shanda – Far from being just a stereotype of addiction, she’s portrayed with empathy and dignity, making difficult choices to protect her son
- Jackie – The twins’ adoptive mother harbors secrets that have shaped their entire lives
- Dakota – Pete’s son, whose innocence and vulnerability raise the emotional stakes
The novel’s dialogue particularly shines in capturing the regional specificities of working-class Connecticut and the linguistic barriers between different communities. Characters speak in ways that reveal their backgrounds without falling into caricature.
Structural Brilliance and Timeline Manipulation
Structurally, the novel moves between multiple perspectives and time periods with confidence. Aliu nimbly shifts viewpoints between Drita, Pete, Shanda, and occasional flashbacks to Jackie’s past, creating a tapestry that gradually reveals how these characters’ lives intertwine. Each chapter builds upon the previous one, filling in gaps in our understanding while simultaneously raising new questions.
The chronological jumps are particularly effective when revealing the twins’ backstory. As we witness their childhood, we understand how their paths diverged despite shared circumstances. These flashbacks don’t merely serve as exposition but actively complicate our understanding of the characters and their motivations.
Themes of Identity and Belonging in Post-War America
Aliu’s exploration of identity feels particularly relevant amid today’s conversations about immigration and assimilation. The novel poses difficult questions: Can someone claim cultural heritage they’ve never experienced? What does it mean to belong to a place or a people? Is family defined by blood, shared history, or daily acts of care?
The Kosovo War serves as more than backdrop—it becomes a catalyst for the twins to reckon with their Albanian heritage. Pete’s involvement with the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) represents his desperate attempt to claim an identity he feels he’s been denied, while Drita’s skepticism reflects her pragmatic approach to belonging.
The novel also examines class dynamics in post-industrial America. Waterbury emerges as a character itself—a once-prosperous manufacturing town whose economic decline mirrors the characters’ struggles. Through Drita’s eyes, we see how limited opportunities and lack of social mobility trap people in cycles of poverty and addiction.
Prose That Captures Emotional Complexity
Aliu’s prose strikes a delicate balance between blunt realism and unexpected lyricism. Her writing never flinches from harsh realities, yet finds moments of beauty in unlikely places. Such moments reveal Aliu’s gift for crystallizing complex emotions into precise language. Her style is reminiscent of writers like Elizabeth Strout and Ann Patchett in its emotional precision, yet maintains a distinctly contemporary edge.
Areas That Could Have Been Strengthened
Despite its overall strength, the novel occasionally struggles with pacing. The middle sections, particularly as Drita searches for Pete online, sometimes lack the urgency of the opening and closing chapters. Some readers may find themselves wanting more forward momentum during these sequences.
Additionally, while the Kosovo War provides crucial context, readers unfamiliar with this conflict might benefit from more historical background. The novel assumes a certain knowledge that not all readers will possess, potentially creating confusion about the stakes of Pete’s involvement with the KLA.
Finally, the resolution, while emotionally satisfying, wraps up some narrative threads more neatly than the messy realities the novel has so honestly portrayed might suggest. The final reconciliations, while moving, occasionally risk simplifying the complex dynamics established throughout.
Cultural Context and Literary Significance
In the landscape of contemporary American fiction, Aliu’s work stands out for its unflinching portrayal of working-class lives and immigrant experiences. Like her debut “Brass,” this novel contributes to important conversations about who gets to tell American stories and which American experiences are deemed worthy of literary attention.
“Everybody Says It’s Everything” shares thematic DNA with novels like:
- Celeste Ng’s “Everything I Never Told You” in its exploration of family secrets
- Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” in its examination of intergenerational immigrant experiences
- Ann Patchett’s “Run” in its nuanced portrayal of adoption and family construction
What distinguishes Aliu’s work is her refusal to romanticize or pathologize her characters’ circumstances. She presents their struggles matter-of-factly, neither asking for pity nor offering easy solutions.
Final Assessment: A Haunting and Necessary Novel
“Everybody Says It’s Everything” confirms Aliu as a major voice in contemporary American fiction. Building on the promise of “Brass,” she has crafted a narrative that feels simultaneously specific to its time and place yet universal in its emotional resonance.
The novel’s greatest achievement is how it complicates our understanding of belonging. Through Drita and Pete’s divergent journeys, Aliu suggests that identity isn’t something we inherit passively but something we actively construct through our choices and connections. The twins’ eventual reconciliation comes not from discovering some essential shared heritage but from choosing to recognize each other despite their differences.
In an era of increasing polarization and hardening identity politics, this message feels both radical and necessary. Aliu reminds us that family—whether biological, adopted, or chosen—is ultimately a verb rather than a noun, something we create through daily acts of recognition and care.
With prose that captures both the harshness and beauty of contemporary American life, characters who linger long after the final page, and emotional insights that feel earned rather than imposed, “Everybody Says It’s Everything” deserves its place among the most accomplished novels of recent years. Despite minor flaws, it establishes Aliu as a writer with important things to say and the considerable skills to say them well.
The Author’s Journey
Xhenet Aliu first gained critical acclaim with her debut novel “Brass,” which won both the Townsend Prize and the Georgia Author of the Year First Novel Award. Prior to that, her short story collection “Domesticated Wild Things” won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction. Her work has appeared in prestigious publications including The New York Times, LitHub, and BuzzFeed.
Aliu draws from her own Albanian-American heritage in her fiction, though her work transcends simple autobiography through its artistic vision and universal themes. Her writing consistently examines class dynamics, cultural displacement, and the construction of identity in contemporary America.
For readers captivated by “Everybody Says It’s Everything,” Aliu’s earlier works provide further evidence of her unique voice and perspective in American letters. Her continued exploration of working-class lives and immigrant experiences marks her as an essential chronicler of an America often overlooked in literary fiction.