You Remind Me of Me

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Summary: A Meditation on Life, Death, and the Meaning of it All
Review: Everything promised in Dan Chaon's short stories in the cherished AMONG THE MISSING collection comes to full fruition in this incandescent novel YOU REMIND ME OF ME. Without question Dan Chaon is emerging as one of the more important writers of the 21st Century, so gifted is he at creating unique characters and then guiding them through the crusty terrain of the earth in search of the meaning of existence. He is a consummate storyteller, a master of the English language, and a social observer along the lines of the greatest thinking writers of the last century.

YOU REMIND ME OF ME, significantly distilled, is the story of two men who share the same biological mother Nora, a woman so fragile that at age 16 she gives the first born son (Troy) for adoption, never marries, keeps her next son (Jonah) born four years later, only to descend into mental illness and guilt of her actions with her first born son and the disaster of her second born being mauled to death by her dog, reviving as though resurrected to a life of physical distortion and loneliness. Thus separated by Nora's decisions, the two boys grow into adulthood without significant direction: Jonah fears relationships because of his physical scarring creating a self concept of appearing a beast and spends his youth as a loner, while Troy's adoptive parents disintegrate, allowing him to bond with a young couple who introduce him to the life of drugs, and his downward swirl ends in a life as a bartender, divorced from a junkie wife and left with a son (Loomis). Jonah longs for the 'brother' he never knew and after Nora's suicide he strikes out to find his only blood relative. All of this happens on the plains of middle America - St. Bonaventure, Nebraska and Little Bow, South Dakota - and Dan Chaon knows these vast stretches of lonely terrain and the isolation of small prairie towns well. He uses the places like a stretched sheet over a morgue bench to dissect the fragile lives of his characters and the folk who populate these spaces. It seems as though reducing the matrix of the novel to such places erases the distractions of life so that he can meditate on the important things. "The true terror, Jonah thought, the true mystery of life was not that we all are going to die, but that we were all born, that we were all once little babies like this, unknowing and slowly reeling in the world, gathering it loop by loop like a ball of string. The true terror was that we once didn't exist, and then, through no fault of our own, we had to." And the thoughts come not only from the young men but from the life experiences of the elderly, such as Judy - the grandmother of Troy's son Loomis: " She is aware of herself dividing. There is a reasonable self, floating above her perception, a practical mind that observes the sensual organism. She is aware of herself as muscle and fat wrapped in a damp skin, aware of herself as a dry, yellow-tasting tongue, aware of the matrix of sounds that spreads out from the center point of her body, the interstate of blood moving, the grasping tendrils of the spirit, seeking purchase."

The story progresses to Jonah's finding Troy, desperately seeking connection to someone, finding that connection through distorted lies about his life that promise a bond with Troy, and the manner in which the earlier referenced 'baby' (Loomis) provides that bond is the odd resolution of this engrossing tale. Jonah's desperate need to connect with Troy finds words from a inebriate mouth: "People seem to think it's all either nature or nurture, or some combination, but you know what? I think it's even worse than that. It's all...random. It's all chaos and luck and whether you're like...stupid and cowlike , like YOU, or else you have some inkling of how deluded it all is." These searchings for meaning close the book in a flashback to the time when Nora was in labor with Jonah: "It's hard to believe that this is how it's done. That this is how we get here into the world, by accident or design, the microscopic pieces of ourselves bourne by fluids and blood and growing into a tiny kingdom of cells inside someone else's body. It seems so difficult to become alive. So improbable." "How can you be alive when every choice you make breaks the world into a thousand filaments, each careless step branching into long tributaries of alternate lives, shuddering outward and outward like sheet lightning."

Yet in addition to all of the profoundly philosophical diversions Chaon writes, he is also deeply concerned with his characters - ALL of them - like the guardian of a small town of disparate citizens, each of whom has a semblance of life and each of whom finds validation from each other. He makes the beauty of nature visual with his poetry, he uses subtle techniques of style to enhance the momentum of how he unfolds the depth of his story, and he leaves us inextricably bonded to some of the most memorable characters you are likely to encounter in any author's books. Savour this jewel of a book with a slow and addictive read. Dan Chaon has the gift.

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Summary: Exquisite, Haunting Novel...
Review: 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.

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Summary: The best novel of the year!
Review: OK we're only half-way through 2004, but this novel is wonderful (poignant, harrowing, heartbreaking, exhilerating, frightening, and, finally, hopeful). Do yourself a favor. Do not read anything about the story; avoid plot summaries and eager reviewers. Just read it and let Chaon's beautifully constructed narrative enfold you. You will not be able to put it down.