Astonishingly brilliant, The Book of Everything tells an all-embracing story with the sort of lyricism and vision that transcends boundaries. As Ile, the Nigerian American narrator, tells the story, his grandfather, King Lazarus, "came back from the dead forty-four years, four months, and four days after his funeral. It was almost as if he chose the date himself. And, in a sense, he did." After he dies, a second time, his grandson travels across the world to unravel his grandfather's magical odyssey as well as his life in South Africa, where he was known as The Monk.