Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in Los Angeles of the immediate future and infused with the anxieties of the present, See's potent new novel articulates the instinctive, human impulse toward connection in the face of mortality. The story centers on the UCLA medical center, where cosmopolitan, twice-widowed Edith volunteers, and where her bewildered dermatologist son, Phil, has his practice. Phil is unhappily married to the disgruntled Felicia and clueless about how to help their troubled prepubescent son or relate to their imperious teenage daughter. Edith tries repeatedly to begin her life again, but despairs of new relationships with "death all around." See also follows the love story of UCLA students Andrea Barclay, whose father's kidney is failing (and whose mother is Edith's confidant), and Danny Lee, whose large Chinese-American family gathers to support a dying uncle. Andrea and Danny's headlong romance contrasts with Phil and Felicia's unraveling marriage; the former's cultural differences become part of the point. And Phil becomes part of a bioterrorism response team; the fracturing and coalescing relationships mirror the drama of a possible epidemic as See's utterly believable characters fumble for love and meaning. (May 16) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Death jostles a diverse group of Californians but it's the life force that prevails here. Los Angeles, 2001. Edith is a well-heeled white Angeleno. Her beloved second husband Charlie dies in her arms after a long illness. The next morning, she watches on television the collapse of the Twin Towers, but the catastrophe doesn't amount to a hill of beans next to her own loss. Her reaction sets the tone for a novel that elevates personal pain and joy above collective anxiety and jingoism. On to 2007. The war in Iraq drags on; everybody is edgy. Edith, a lonely widow, is a volunteer receptionist at UCLA Medical Center, where her son, Phil Fuchs, is a dermatologist. Phil has problems at home. His whiny wife Felicia is worried about aging. Daughter Eloise is an obnoxious brat. Vernon, 11, for whom Phil feels a "terrible, soft, embarrassing love," is acting up like crazy. At the hospital, he's chosen to join a top-secret team organized by the military to treat future bioterrorism victims; he is refused permission to leave the program when he becomes disaffected. In the reception room, two families are on tenterhooks. The Barclays and their daughter Andrea are hoping for a kidney for her father, a university lecturer, who is fading fast. The other family are recent Chinese immigrants; an uncle is on a respirator. Danny has seen Andrea in undergraduate poetry class. Almost before they know what's happening, they're making love in the campus Botanical Garden; mutual desire is that strong, and it keeps death at bay. Phil's world comes crashing down when he finds Felicia flaunting her lover Larry ("in security") at her 40th birthday bash. Divorce looms, and prospective stepfather Larry is threatening Vern with military school. Disregarding a hospital emergency summons, Phil acts fast to save Vern and himself; it's a gloriously improbable plan, but it works. Uneven but never dull, See's seventh (after The Handyman, 1999, etc.) throws an idiosyncratic light on our contemporary age of anxiety. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
This novel starts out as a curiosity, takes a turn into something perplexing, but ends as an artistic and soulful master achievement. The well-respected author sets her tale in the near future, and the war in which the U.S. has been involved for several years continues to be waged ( which war is no mystery despite being unidentified). Terrorism against the U.S. eventually assumes the form of environmental disaster. But, unusual for a forecast novel, this one eschews any what-will-technology-come-to-look-like gimmickry; emphatically, this is no spy thriller. Phil Fuchs is a physician affiliated with UCLA hospital; his wife is unhappy, and his kids are a mess. He seems to be just surfing through his life. His mother is recently widowed and unsettled. But Phil has to snap-to when, first, he is called on to participate in a top-secret emergency-response unit and then must face the breakup of his marriage. A secondary storyline seems unattached to the main one at first, but soon See's tight control over all the plot elements becomes obvious. The novel's deep resonance lies in her imaginative yet meaningful juxtaposition of global issues and domestic ones: crises in the former can connect with, influence, and even determine the outcome of crises in the latter. --Brad Hooper Copyright 2006 Booklist
Library Journal Review
A widow assuages her loneliness by volunteering at the hospital where her son serves as a doctor, even as the son's career and marriage are being slowly upended. With a four-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.