There will never be another you : a novel

Format:

Book

Title:

There will never be another you : a novel

Author:

See, Carolyn.

ISBN:

9780679463177

9780345440471

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

242 pages ; 25 cm

Summary:

In the near future, the global threat of terror has cultivated rage, apathy, and panic. People fear that "anybody could be armed, or have a bomb. Or a disease. Or all three." For Phil, a dermatologist, it is a time of unease and uncertainty, in contrast to the days when he coasted through life on his good looks, a modicum of charm, and only haphazard effort. Phil's energies are divvied up among his belligerent children, his grieving mother, his wayward wife, and his unreliable mistress. Then he is recruited for a top-secret team to act in the event of a biological or chemical attack. The assignment just may provide him with a sense of purpose. Yet dire circumstances force Phil to make profound decisions that will affect the entire country. It is a chance for an ordinary man to rise from mediocrity to heroism--and failure would be catastrophic.--From publisher description.

Subject(s):

Widows -- Fiction.

Volunteer workers in hospitals -- Fiction.

Parent and adult child -- Fiction.

Crisis management -- Fiction.

Dysfunctional families -- Fiction.

Dermatologists -- Fiction.

California, Southern -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

California, Southern -- Fiction.

Southern California

Genre:

Psychological fiction.

Domestic fiction.

Domestic fiction

Fiction

Psychological fiction

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Silver Falls Library	FIC SEE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

"Carolyn See has written a novel alive with wit and love and energy-a book about things falling apart that turns out to be a day at the beach. . . . Pure joy."-Joan Didion. Accomplished author Carolyn See triumphantly returns to fiction-seven years after her last novel was published-with this provocative, vibrantly written new novel. Set in a security-obsessed world that eerily mirrors our own, There Will Never Be Another You captures the paranoia and propaganda of a volatile time and place in which humanity's divisions run deep and society sits on edge-and one Southern California family faces profound crises from within and without. It is a moment in the near future when the global threat of terror has cultivated rage, apathy, and panic across the country. People fear that "anybody could be armed, or have a bomb. Or a disease. Or all three." For Phil, a dermatologist at the UCLA hospital, it is a time of unease and uncertainty, in stark contrast to the days when he coasted through life on his good looks, a modicum of charm, and only haphazard effort. Now Phil must deal with his mother, Edith, who's been grieving over the death of her husband for several years and only recently has thought to reconnect with a family that seems to have other priorities. Phil's energies are already divvied up among his belligerent children, his wayward wife, and his unreliable mistress. Then Phil's life takes a dramatic turn: He is recruited for a top-secret team whose task is to act quickly in the event of a biological or chemical attack. The assignment just may provide him with a renewed sense of purpose. Yet dire circumstances force Phil to make profound decisions that will affect not just himself and his loved ones but the entire country. It is a chance for an ordinary man to rise from mediocrity to heroism-and at which failure would prove to be catastrophic. Foreboding and all too plausible, There Will Never Be Another You is a cautionary novel of family and society, where a naïve past is replaced by a menacing future in which distinguishing between reality and imagination proves to be more challenging than ever.

Author Notes

Carolyn See was born Carolyn Penelope Laws in Pasadena, California on January 13, 1934. She received a bachelor's degree from California State University Los Angeles in 1957 and a doctorate in English from UCLA in 1962. She taught creative writing classes at Loyola Marymount University and at UCLA. Before she retired in 2004, she created a $100,000 endowment at UCLA, for the study of Southern California literature. She was also a regular book critic at the L.A. Times and the Washington Post

She wrote more than a dozen books including the novels Rhine Maidens, Golden Days, and There Will Never Be Another You. With John Espey and Lisa See, she co-wrote two novels under the pseudonym Monica Highland: Lotus Land and 110 Shanghai Road. They also wrote a nonfiction book about vintage postcards entitled Greetings from Southern California. In 1995, See wrote a memoir entitled Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America. She also wrote a guidebook for beginning writers entitled Making a Literary Life. She received the L.A. Times Book Prize's Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement in 1993. She died of cancer on July 13, 2016 at the age of 82.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (4)

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.