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Title details for You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon - Available

You Remind Me of Me

by Dan Chaon
Jim Soriero
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

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? 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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 29, 2006

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780792741343
      • File size: 364817 KB
      • Duration: 12:40:02

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Listeners will admire the care and precision short story writer Dan Chaon (AMONG THE MISSING) invests in his first novel. Chaon recounts the horror of a young boy hideously mauled by his mother's dog, the lethargy of a small-time drug dealer, the plight of a pregnant teenaged girl, and the anguish of a grandmother who discovers her 6-year-old grandson is missing. Like any good Impressionist, Chaon brings these seemingly dissimilar people together, masterfully connecting the dots until a complete human picture emerges. Narrator Jim Soriero gives an intelligent, enthusiastic reading. His voice has an ingenuous quality especially suited to the novel's earliest scenes. Without attempting to capture accents or personalities, Soriero's narration has an appealing intensity. Chaon's wit, intricate plotting, and poetic narrative make this memorable listening. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from March 8, 2004
      A starred or starred boxed review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred or boxed review.

      YOU REMIND ME OF ME
      Dan Chaon
      . Ballantine
      , $24.95 (352p) ISBN 0-345-44141-9

      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. (June)

      Forecast
      :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. Eight-city author tour
      .

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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