All of Us Together in the End

All Of Us Together In The End is a lyrical examination of transformation after loss, by a writer the New York Times calls irresistible and utterly convincing.

Vollmers family memoir shimmers with wonder and enchantment and begins with the death of his mother from early-onset Alzheimers and Parkinsons. Soon after, flashing lights and floating orbs appear in the woods surrounding his familys home in rural North Carolina, where his widowed father lives. Formative memories of having been raised in the Seventh-day Adventist church resurge in Vollmers mind, hastening self-reexamination and reckoning.

He corresponds with a retired geology professor about ghost lights, which supposedly occur more in North Carolina than any other American state. He scrolls TikTok. He contacts an eccentric shaman who lives in Spain to have transcendental psychotherapy administered over Zoom. And then Jolene emerges, a woman endeared for decades to Vollmers father, holding secrets to their familys past.

Amidst the turmoil and loneliness of the pandemic, All of Us Together in the End is a poignant and often humorous investigation into belief set in a time where it seems people will believe anything. It is an elegiac affirmation of the awesome, strange, otherworldly ways our loved ones remain alive to us, even when they are out of reach.