Xhenet Aliu’s sophomore novel, “Everybody Says It’s Everything,” weaves a captivating tale of twins navigating the complex terrain of identity, family bonds, and cultural heritage against the backdrop of late 1990s America and the Kosovo War. Building on the promise of her award-winning debut “Brass,” Aliu demonstrates her gift for creating richly textured characters whose lives illuminate larger societal issues while remaining deeply personal.
Set primarily in 1999, the novel follows Albanian-American twins Drita and Petrit (Pete) DiMeo, whose paths have dramatically diverged since childhood. Drita, once college-bound and full of ambition, has returned to her hometown of Waterbury, Connecticut, to care for their disabled mother Jackie after her father’s death. Meanwhile, Pete has been absent for three years, having abandoned his girlfriend Shanda and their young son Dakota. When Shanda unexpectedly reappears with Dakota in tow, Drita finds herself drawn into a search for her wayward brother that will ultimately unravel truths about their family that challenge everything she thought she knew about herself.
Character Development That Resonates
Aliu excels at crafting characters who feel lived-in and authentic, with complex motivations that defy easy categorization:
- Drita emerges as the novel’s emotional center—a woman caught between obligation and aspiration, who clings to ambitions of rejoining the world of public health while feeling increasingly trapped by circumstances. Her journey from resentment to understanding forms the backbone of the narrative.
- Pete, though absent for much of the novel, looms large throughout. His sections reveal a man desperately seeking belonging, easily swayed by stronger personalities offering direction and purpose.
- Shanda, perhaps the novel’s most surprising character, evolves from a seemingly one-dimensional junkie stereotype into a nuanced portrait of a woman fighting to overcome her past for her son’s sake.
- Jackie, the twins’ adoptive mother, harbors secrets that have shaped the family in ways none of them fully understand until they’re forced to confront the truth.
The relationship between Drita and Dakota—her nephew who might not technically be her nephew at all—provides some of the novel’s most touching moments, as the boy’s guileless observations cut through Drita’s defenses.
Thematic Depth and Cultural Exploration
Aliu’s exploration of identity—both personal and cultural—gives the novel its philosophical heft. The twins’ disconnection from their Albanian heritage becomes increasingly significant as Pete is drawn into the Kosovo War through his work with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), highlighting how the search for belonging can lead down dangerous paths.
The theme of cultural displacement runs throughout, with characters grasping at thin connections to homelands they’ve never known or barely remember. When Drita discovers the truth about her and Pete’s origins—that they aren’t biological twins but unrelated Albanian orphans Jackie adopted and raised as twins—the novel raises profound questions about what constitutes family and how much our origins define us.
“I just think Pete should think about his people before he joins a war for his people.” Drita asks at one point, encapsulating the novel’s central tension between obligations to abstract ideas of heritage versus concrete responsibilities to the people in our immediate lives.
Narrative Structure and Voice
The novel unfolds primarily through Drita’s perspective in 1999, with interludes showcasing Pete’s experiences and flashbacks to crucial moments in the family’s history. This structure effectively builds tension while gradually revealing the family secrets that drive the plot.
Aliu’s prose is sharp, often darkly humorous, and deeply attuned to class markers and regional specificities. Her descriptions of Waterbury’s post-industrial decline provide a fitting backdrop for characters struggling to find stability in shifting circumstances. Consider this characteristic passage describing Nadia’s apartment:
“Mounds of garbage had been shoved into black lawn bags, and Shanda, on her hands and knees, shoveled yet more debris in, looking ironically less animal than she ever had before among all that trash. Now she just seemed broken, though Drita wondered why people always talked about that as a pejorative, as if it wasn’t what was done to horses to make them able to live proximate to humans.”
This blend of gritty observation with unexpected philosophical insight typifies Aliu’s narrative voice—unflinching yet empathetic, with an ear for the cadences of everyday speech that brings her characters vividly to life.
Historical Context and Relevance
Set against the backdrop of the Kosovo War, the novel deftly integrates historical events without becoming didactic. Aliu portrays how distant conflicts reverberate through immigrant communities in America, creating unexpected allegiances and divides. The depiction of the Albanian-American community’s mobilization around the Kosovo crisis feels authentically rendered and provides crucial context for Pete’s misguided attempt to find purpose.
The late 1990s setting is equally well-realized, with cultural touchstones (Furbies, AOL chat rooms, Jeopardy!) serving not just as nostalgic markers but as meaningful elements that inform character and plot. The emerging internet becomes a tool through which Drita attempts to locate her brother, highlighting how technology was beginning to transform human connection even as it created new avenues for deception.
Critical Assessment: Strengths and Limitations
Aliu’s greatest strength is her ability to capture complex emotional states with precision and restraint. The scenes between Drita and Dakota shine particularly bright, portraying their tentative bond with tenderness without slipping into sentimentality. Similarly, the complicated relationship between the twins feels authentic in its messiness.
The novel also excels in its portrayal of class struggles in post-industrial America. Characters make compromises and poor choices not because they’re inherently flawed but because their options are severely constrained by economic realities. Aliu never condescends to her working-class characters, instead rendering their lives with dignity and nuance.
If the novel has a weakness, it’s that certain narrative threads feel somewhat unresolved by the conclusion. Valon’s character, who becomes increasingly important to Drita through their online correspondence, doesn’t quite achieve the depth afforded to the central family members. Their connection, while intriguing, doesn’t fully pay off emotionally in their brief in-person meeting.
Additionally, some readers might find the pacing in the middle section slightly uneven, as Drita’s search for Pete occasionally stalls while other character dynamics develop. However, this deliberate pacing ultimately serves the novel’s themes about the frustrating nature of seeking answers that may never fully satisfy.
Conclusion: A Significant Literary Achievement
“Everybody Says It’s Everything” confirms Xhenet Aliu as a significant voice in contemporary American fiction. Building on the promise of her debut “Brass,” which won both the Townsend Prize and the Georgia Author of the Year First Novel Award, this sophomore effort demonstrates her growing mastery of complex narrative structures and thematic depth.
Fans of authors like Elizabeth Strout (Tell Me Everything), Ann Patchett (Tom Lake), and Tommy Orange (Wandering Stars) will find much to appreciate in Aliu’s unflinching yet compassionate portrayal of family dynamics against the backdrop of cultural displacement and search for identity. Like these writers, Aliu understands that the most personal stories often illuminate the largest truths about American life.
This is a novel that lingers in the mind long after the final page, raising questions about what we owe to our families—both the ones we’re born into and the ones we create—and how we reconcile the competing claims of heritage, ambition, and responsibility. In an era where questions of identity and belonging dominate public discourse, “Everybody Says It’s Everything” offers no easy answers but provides a deeply human exploration of how we navigate these waters in our imperfect, everyday lives.
