You Remind Me of Me
Dan Chaon, 2004
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345441409
In Brief
With his critically acclaimed Among the Missing and Fitting Ends, award-winning author Dan Chaon proved himself a master of the short story form. He is a writer, observes the Chicago Tribune, who can "convincingly squeeze whole lives into a mere twenty pages or so." Now Chaon marshals his notable talents in his much-anticipated debut novel.
You Remind Me of Me begins with a series of separate incidents: In 1977, a little boy is savagely attacked by his mother's pet Doberman; in 1997 another little boy disappears from his grandmother's backyard on a sunny summer morning; in 1966, a pregnant teenager admits herself to a maternity home, with the intention of giving her child up for adoption; in 1991, a young man drifts toward a career as a drug dealer, even as he hopes for something better.
With penetrating insight and a deep devotion to his characters, Dan Chaon explores the secret connections that irrevocably link them. In the process he examines questions of identity, fate, and circumstance: Why do we become the people that we become? How do we end up stuck in lives that we never wanted? And can we change the course of what seems inevitable?
In language that is both unflinching and exquisite, Chaon moves deftly between the past and the present in the small-town prairie Midwest and shows us the extraordinary lives of "ordinary" people. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1946
• Raised—Sidney, Nebraska, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Syracuse University
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; O'Henry Award; Academy Award in
Literature-The American Academy of Arts & Letters
• Currently—lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, USA
Dan Chaon (pronounced "Shawn") is the acclaimed author of Fitting Ends and Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award, which was also listed as one of the ten best books of the year by the American Library Association, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Entertainment Weekly, as well as being cited as a New York Times Notable Book.
Chaon’s fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and won both Pushcart and O. Henry awards. Chaon teaches at Oberlin College and lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with his wife and two sons. (From the publisher and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
You Remind Me of Me is the first novel by an author already established for mournful, eloquent short stories with a tone reminiscent of Russell Banks's. Mr. Chaon's stories have been about emotional ellipses in his characters' lonely lives. (His collection Among the Missing was a nominee for the National Book Award.) In the same manner the new book is a peculiarly haunting work, since it has as much to do with what is absent from its characters' stories as with what is present. So Jonah grows up to be an uneasy loner, and he clings to the sense that his life could have been different if one important loss had never occurred. He knows exactly what that loss is.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
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. Readers of Kent Haruf will find similarities here, in the settings in small towns on the Great Plains and in the dignified portrayal of people leading secret, stoic lives.
Publishers Weekly
In his masterly first novel, Chaon tells an absorbing tale of fate and the struggle for recovery and human connection. His greatest strength is the ability to intertwine multiple stories while neatly showcasing the tangled threads of each character. In one thread, a young boy named Jonah is brutally attacked and permanently scarred by his grandfather's Doberman pinscher; in another, Norma, Jonah's mentally ill mother, recalls entering a home for unwed mothers, where she prepared to give up her first child for adoption. That brings us to said child, Troy Timmens, a small-time drug dealer and bartender with a son of his own, Loomis. Jonah seeks out his older brother, who desperately wants more out of life, but their connection ends in disaster. Chaon, whose short story collection, Among the Missing, drew rave reviews, allows his characters to enact their lives, losses, and hopes in a stark and realistic manner. Readers who prefer expertly crafted plotting and strong characterization will be drawn to this novel. Highly recommended for public library systems with an emphasis on literary fiction and for anyone interested in promising first novelists. —Christopher J. Korenowsky, Columbus Metropolitan Lib. Syst., OH
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
School Library Journal
Acclaimed storywriter Chaon (Among the Missing, 2001, etc.) affirms his matchless skill in crafting the small sketch, even as he struggles to conclude the weather-beaten plot of his first novel with large-scale grace. The initial handful of chapters here, in fact, read like a fresh collection of stories, distinguished as usual by the shy, cutting honesty of Chaon's prose. As these precisely dated chapters collect, the larger design of the whole emerges. Jonah and Troy share a mother. Troy was adopted out, while Jonah was raised by his mother and grandfather. Nearly all the characters here are adopted, in one way or another, some more than once. While his legal parents shred apart the last tendrils of their marriage, Troy is taken into a young family's circle. Jonah lives with his mother, herself an orphan, her wifeless father, and a Doberman pinscher. Each incident is expertly delineated as the narrative gathers momentum: Troy's early experiences with soft drugs and girls, Jonah's mauling by his grandfather's Doberman, and their mother's yearlong stay at a home for unwed mothers. When Jonah sets out to find the brother he's heard his mother mention, Chaon's taut mastery slackens. Hiring on as a cook where his half-brother works, Jonah learns that Troy, recently arrested for marijuana possession, has lost custody of his son Loomis. The tightly wound Jonah improbably attempts to "rescue" the boy back into Troy's custody, even as Troy continues to struggle with the new knowledge that he has a long-lost brother. The symmetries and compensations here are a bit too tidy, and though his final vignette leaves the reader astonished once again, the larger satisfactions of mature plot-making remain elusive for this powerful, promising writer.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why did Nora give up her first baby and not her second? In turn, how did each child pay the price of her decision?
2. How do Jonah’s scars influence his life the most?
3. Why is Jonah so much more interested in the baby his mother gave up than Troy is about being adopted?
4. How do you feel Jonah and Troy’s lives would have been different if Nora had been honest with Wayne Hill, Troy’s natural father, about being pregnant?
5. How are Steve and Holiday, and Jonah important to each other? Why did their relationship end?
6. Why couldn’t Jonah recognize the circumstances he could change/influence so his fate would turn out differently?
7. How would Jonah and Troy’s lives been different if Jonah had been honest with Troy about their connection when they first met?
8. Why do you think Jonah didn’t tell Troy the truth about Nora’s life and personality when they first meet? Would this have changed the relationship between Troy and Jonah?
9. At what point did you recognize that Jonah has seriously broken with reality?
10. What is the significance of names in this novel? Why do you think the author chose each name?
Troy
The Mrs. Glass House
Jonah
Gary Gray
Mrs. Keene
Lisa Fixx
Loomis
St. Bonaventure
(Questions issued by publisher.)