Praise for
Carolyn See's There Will Never Be Another You
From the Jacket
“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.
From Publishers Weekly
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.
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Among the most potent and poignant new novels to address post-9/11 America is
Carolyn See's There Will Never Be Another You. It is potent because the
sense of dread and unease that mark almost every moment in the book is palpable;
it is poignant because See, who in previous books has proven eminently capable
of skewering her characters when they misbehave, has such compassion for the
largely villain-less ensemble that populates this tale. Moreover, for readers
who savored the last novel she wrote before 9/11, The Handyman, it is
particularly affecting to see the way anxiety has replaced anticipation for one
writer.
There Will Never Be Another You is set in See's familiar milieu of
southern California, in the largely privileged confines of Westwood and UCLA.
The novel opens with a short prologue: 58-year-old Edith's second husband has
just died after a long illness, and at 6 in the morning -- as she is cleaning up
the Depends, the baby powder and the soiled sheets that marked her husband's
last days -- the phone rings. It is her son, Phil, a dermatologist at the UCLA
medical center, calling to tell her that she must turn on the television because
the Twin Towers in Manhattan are on fire.
See then jumps to the main body of her story. It is nearly six years later, the
spring of 2007, and the world has already become a much darker place -- even
inside the usually happily oblivious haven of Westwood. Phil starts spotting
dead cats. He sees the first one on the way to work and a second one outside a
cafeteria window at the hospital. And then from his office window he sees a
third, and this one is up in a tree. Within minutes a cherry picker arrives:
"The guy in the picker was dressed in white, in what looked like a HAZ-MAT
outfit except it didn't have any lettering, and his face was covered with a
clear plastic mask. He was using pincers about three feet long. He reached
gingerly out to the branch, pinched the cat, brought it back in to the platform
he was standing on, and -- Phil saw now -- dropped it onto a stack of what had
to be maybe eighteen or twenty other cats."
Is this the beginning of a terrorist attack involving biological weapons? Or has
an experiment at the medical center run horribly amok? See is too intelligent a
novelist to give us a quick answer. All we know for sure is that a lot of
monkeys seem to have disappeared, too, and Phil -- much to his chagrin -- is
recruited onto a hospital response team that is going to be trained to confront
a looming, awful but completely unknowable terrorist attack.
Yet despite the fears of an impending terrorist strike, life goes on, as does
death -- from disease and old age and tragic but pedestrian accidents. And that
dichotomy is what really interests See, and what makes her new novel such a
remarkable achievement. Will Edith, now in her mid-sixties, find love again, or
will she while away her days as a volunteer at the hospital information desk?
Can Phil and his unhappy wife make peace? And what of their children, especially
their deeply troubled sixth-grade boy?
Meanwhile, there is an equally compelling subplot involving young lovers Andrea
Barclay and Danny Lee, students at UCLA, who spend a lot of time at the hospital
themselves because Andrea's father needs a new kidney and Danny's uncle is
dying. For all of these characters, the great questions of their lives would
have been no different before 9/11; now, however, they must live with a specter
not unlike the sort Americans endured as they learned to duck and cover beneath
their desks and waited for the big one to fall in the 1950s.
While it may be too soon for some novelists to approach 9/11, it isn't for See.
She seems to have been changed by the events, and There Will Never Be Another
You offers a glimpse of how we, too, have been transformed.
Reviewed by Chris Bohjalian
From Booklist
*Starred 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.
<<read an excerpt from There Will Never Be Another You>>
<<read an interview with Carolyn See>>
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