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From Publishers Weekly
Three lives viewed through a kaleidoscope of memories and secret pain assume a kind of mythical dimension in Chaon's piercingly poignant tale of fate, chance and search for redemption. As he demonstrated in his short story collection Among the Missing, Chaon has a sensitive radar for the daily routines of people striving to escape the margins of poverty and establish meaningful lives. Here, a woman's unsuccessful effort to rise above the pain of giving away an illegitimate baby, and to fight against mental illness and offer love to a second child, blights all their lives. Living with his harsh and bitter mother, Norma, and his kindly grandfather in Little Bow, S.Dak., young Jonah Doyle is permanently scarred after the family's Doberman attacks and maims him. The resulting livid ridges on his face are the outward manifestations of a deeper wound that will always haunt him. After his mother's suicide, Jonah sets out to find the older brother he has never met, and in the process, brings them both to the verge of tragedy. Jonah's older sibling is Troy Timmens, a well-meaning bartender and sometime drug dealer in St. Bonaventure, Nebr., who is devoted to his six-year-old son, Loomis. The boy will play a pivotal part in Jonah's quixotic attempts to win Troy's love. Chaon structures his plot in alternating flashbacks, and the fragmentary time structure forces the reader to puzzle out the relationships and contributes to rising dramatic tension. Chaon's clarity of observation, expressed in restrained, nuanced prose, coupled with his compassion for his flawed characters, creates a heart-wrenching story of people searching for connection.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–This first novel focuses on the disparate lives of a fragmented family as they struggle with the harsh realities of poverty, depression, and dysfunction. The story opens with Jonah, a troubled, self-involved boy in a small South Dakota town. Raised by a depressed and suicidal mother who never wanted him, he survives an attack from the family's Doberman only to be severely scarred on his face and hands. Jonah develops into a lonely and isolated man who tries to make connections with anyone willing to befriend him, only to push others away by eventually demanding more than they want to give. Driven by his need for acceptance, Jonah seeks out an older half brother who was given up for adoption at birth. Troy, a bartender and occasional marijuana dealer, has difficulties of his own: shortly after the disappearance of his wife, he is arrested and placed on probation and house arrest for drug dealing. He struggles to regain custody of his son, Loomis, a strangely intelligent and watchful boy, from his uncooperative mother-in-law and has little time for the hopeful Jonah. In what he intends as a gesture of brotherly friendship, Jonah kidnaps Loomis, meaning to take the boy to Troy. This desperate act ultimately leads to the dramatic yet real conclusion. A series of tightly interwoven flashbacks; deft handling of structure; and simple, precise language transform these characters' lives into a story that is highly readable, thought-provoking, and profoundly moving.–Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Read,
This review is from: You Remind Me of Me (Hardcover)
There is a dark undercurrent in YOU REMIND ME OF ME that is oddly refreshing because of the biting sense of reality. Evoking strong images of MY FRACTURED LIFE and THE LOS ANGELES DIARIES, Don Chaon's YOU REMIND ME OF ME is a strong story of a fragmented family struggling with the unique challenges of mental illness and poverty. Gritty subject matters to be clear, but woven with expertise into a stunning novel.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Exquisite, Haunting Novel...,
By
This review is from: You Remind Me of Me (Hardcover)
I had to consume this book in small bites rather my usual all-consuming "non-stop" style. I agree with the other reviewers that this author writes with an absolutely luminous style that transcends the hopeless and regret-filled lives of his characters. But I often felt mired in the quicksand of their lives, and struggled at times to find a reason to continue reading after yet another disappointment or dream unfulfilled. It isn't an easy book to read - either emotionally or structurally because of the author's style of moving forward and backward in the characters lives. Luckily he puts the dates at the beginning of each chapter , making it a bit easier to orient the reader as the story weaves between the characters. This book will undoubtedly be considered for many major awards - and the characters will linger in my memory in the days and weeks to come.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worthwhile,
By Mark Twain, Sam (Here) - See all my reviews
This review is from: You Remind Me of Me: A Novel (Paperback)
YOU REMIND ME OF ME is not your ordinary book. Jonah was dead once. He is a six-year-old boy living with his grandfather and his mother, who tells him of the baby she put up for adoption before he was born. Elizabeth, an elderly Doberman trained by Jonah's grandfather to be a guard dog, also lives with them. Lonely Jonah, ignored by his depressed mother, adores Elizabeth. When he constantly plays with her, his grandfather says, "Quit pestering that damned dog! I hope she bites you someday." And then she does. Elizabeth bites off part of Jonah's ear. She savages his face, scalp and chest. She kills Jonah. The paramedics resuscitate him. The scars he bears forever symbolize internal wounds caused by his upbringing.Around the time of Jonah's death and resurrection, ten-year-old Troy avoids his adopted parents' unhappy marriage by hanging out with his drug-dealing cousin and his pot-smoking teenage customers. Troy becomes a drug-dealer himself eventually, even after his wife leaves him with custody of his much-loved son, Loomis. A scene from an earlier period reveals Nora as a lonely girl in a bleak unwed mothers' home: "It is not quite a prison, not quite a hospital." She does not want the baby --- at first. Her feelings reluctantly change, but it's too late. By the time she voices her wish to keep her son, he's been taken to his adoptive parents. Moving back to the past and forward into the present, the reader learns the story of Jonah, Troy and Nora --- two boys and their mother. The stories give the reader the emotional underpinnings necessary to empathize with each character, and are brilliantly dovetailed together into one big meaty tale. Author Dan Chaon also pays loving tribute to Midwest prairie and small towns, making the setting a vital element to the story. Each character is disconnected and yearns for someone. Nora has never recovered from the loss of her first son. That sorrow has twisted Nora's personality until she is mostly unable to give love to her second boy. Jonah obsesses about his older brother, the baby his mother gave up for adoption. He wonders about the hand he's been dealt. Who is better off --- the brother whose life was mauled by his despondent mother, or the one who escaped via adoption? Jonah's longing to connect with his half-brother leads him to search for Troy. When Jonah finds him, Troy is in agony. After being arrested for dealing drugs, his son Loomis is in the custody of his grandmother, who won't allow Jonah to visit or speak with him. Troy is so painfully distracted by missing Loomis that he can't quite focus when Jonah approaches him as his brother. Inevitably, Jonah decides to act, hoping his drastic feat will somehow give him the family he's craving.
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