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Overview
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.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780345502391 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 09/25/2007 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 272 |
| File size: | 727 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
EDITH
I woke up on the couch, where I’d been sleeping for the last two months. I was alone. I looked at the ceiling for quite a long time and then said, out loud, “Let me just keep my eyes open.”
I got up, put on some coffee, pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, got out maybe a dozen plastic trash bags, and went into the bedroom where he’d died. I started with the piles of Depends, cartons and cartons of them.
I filled one plastic trash bag with Chux and another with Depends and went out the front door of the apartment to throw the goddamned things down the trash chute. One of my neighbors tottered toward me, snazzy in leopard-skin tights and pearls, even though it wasn’t yet six in the morning.
“Well, I made it, Estelle,” I said, because Estelle had been telling me for a year now that it was the wives, the caretakers, the relatives, the innocent bystanders, who died first, taking care of their sick husbands. Or whoever. And the husbands went on forever. Of course, Estelle’s did. He would never die. Just too mean.
“It’s not over yet,” Estelle said, looking me over, and clicked past, in high heels and rhinestone-spattered socks, using her walker as a weapon.
Inside the apartment, the phone rang. People were savages, really. It was barely six! I took another bag and loaded it up with creams and lotions and antiseptics and catheters of every de- scription, and dozens of those gelled cotton things on sticks that you use to swab the mouths of dying people when water is too much for them. And here was baby powder. And moisturized towelettes.
It took a lot of junk to see someone off to the next world. The den already held two wheelchairs, three sponge-rubber wedges, a trapeze (which had nearly knocked out a nurse when she’d bashed into it one night), two oxygen tanks, a big no smoking sign (even though he’d never used the oxygen and nobody in the house smoked), and an extra commode. I took the other commode and hauled it into the den too, then unhooked the slabs of metal on either side of our bed that had made it into a hospital bed, in theory, when you pulled them up, but none of us had ever been able to keep him in anyway. He’d wanted too hard to get out. I’d seen him, when he thought no one was in the room, hoisting himself up against those rails, then failing, sinking back onto the mattress. But sometimes he succeeded. There he’d be again, down on the floor, and I’d have to call the firemen, who’d pick him up and toss him back in bed.
I hauled the metal sides into the den, and the phone rang again. Fuck you, I thought, poured myself some coffee, and sat for ten minutes to read the newspaper. I was putting off the next step, although I knew I had to do it. When the phone rang the third time I went into the bedroom, pulled back the blankets, and stripped the sheets. I knew—I’d read—that when people died they voided everything that was still in them. I had, somewhere in the back of my head, my own suicide plan: pills, vodka, a plastic bag—and for God’s sake remember a laxative a day ahead of time—and maybe a Fleet enema. (Although I couldn’t imagine, no matter how considerate I might want to be, putting myself through a Fleet when I was going to die anyway.)
But there was nothing here, just a nickel’s worth, a modest little stain. I had looked up his behind once, his sphincter helpless, relaxed and open. How much I’ll know of you! But it was such a mystery, like a postcard of a subway, pink and clean, curving off into the middle of his body.
As the phone began ringing, I pulled off the sheets, bundled them up with the last set of towels, and walked down to the laundry room. Estelle passed me again, taking her own exercise, keeping herself alive. See! her look said, but I ignored her, filled every machine in the place—extra hot water, plenty of bleach.
In the kitchen I threw out the applesauce and the Ensure, the ice cream, in the same way the undertakers had casually taken him out the door the night before. In the bathroom I pitched out the pills to keep his sick heart strong, his blood thin, his pres- sure down, his flow up. I threw out the laxatives and the powder that slows your bowels to a standstill. I kept the painkillers and the tranquilizers. The hospice people had come yesterday, just minutes after he’d died, to pour what morphine was left in the toilet.
The phone rang. This time I answered. “Yes, what is it,” I said resentfully into the receiver, because it wasn’t even seven in the morning and I was a widow now and any condolences would have to be pretty good.
“Turn on the television.” For a minute, I couldn’t even place his voice. The doctor? A neighbor? That infernal minister the hospice people kept sending out, and I couldn’t say no because he was part of the package, along with the wheelchairs and the wedges? But no, it was my son. He hadn’t even said hello. He sounded more cracked than usual, poor guy. “You’ll see history being made, I think.” And he hung up.
I poured more coffee, set out some change on the sink to remind me to put the sheets in the dryer when the time came, went into the living room, and turned on the set.
Buildings on fire. In New York. Then one, incredibly, went down.
I admit, for a minute, I was impressed. That was the word. Then I thought, Fuck that! The only human being in the world who ever loved me—except for my goofy son, maybe—died last night. Died in my arms. Breathed his last. Excuse me, God, but you’re going to have to do better than that if you want to impress me! Damn fucking easterners.
Of course, we all do that now, tell where we were on that date, and what we were doing. I was talking to Melinda Barclay, in the Med Center where I volunteer, to pass the time. We were both still doing it now.
Reading Group Guide
1. Early in the novel, Edith says, “Then the curtain went up for me . . . and I saw the world. . . . I learned about the world, what it was made of. I can’t say I liked it, or that any of it has done me any good. All I can do now is divide the world between those who know and those who don’t” (page 14). Who else in There Will Never Be Another You has had the curtain go up? What caused it to rise?
2. On page 16, Edith claims that she is stuck. What does she mean? Is she still stuck at the end of the novel?
3. When Phil attends the first meeting of the secret medical team, Colonel Davies waves away Phil’s concerns about his lack of qualifications and says, “We’ve been looking into you. You’re our man.” Why do you think Phil is selected for the job?
4. On page 41, Edith says, “He must know–he’s selling himself short–that he could be so much more than he is.” Why has Phil settled, in his career, his marriage, and his happiness? What made him aim so low?
5. Did something go wrong with Vernon and Eloise, or does their behavior fall within the spectrum of that of “normal” children? Is anyone (or anything) to blame for Vernon’s poor grades and misbehavior, or for Eloise’s disdain for her family?
6. When Phil and Felicia argue about having another baby, Phil wants to say, “Don’t you think this world-situation thing is a little out of control ? . . . Do you think we both don’t know Eloise is sneaking out at night? Don’t you know I fool around sometimes? Don’t we both know that something’s up with Vernon, something’s really up? So isn’t the whole thing a fiasco by now?” (page 66). So much of Phil and Felicia’s life together seems to have happened to them, as though they have had no impact on the trajectory of their experiences. How did Phil lose control so completely? Why does he feel so powerless to make things better? Has a collective sense of helplessness contributed to the state of our world?
7. Following one of their mandatory training sessions, Phil asks his friend Jack, “What I want to know . . . is how did we get into this? What is it that we did? As a country, I mean?” (page 109). What do you think America has done to contribute to, or cause, the current political climate? After Phil poses this grave question, he notes that, “There was the lobster in front of him, and lights flashing out to sea. Let it alone. Eat it.” Why does See juxtapose the enjoyment of first-world comforts with fear and unease?
8. At the Palomino, Phil and Jack see a drunk man confront the government official who created a security plan that compromises citizens’ rights. The Secret Service guard present says, “We have to pull together as a country. We have to put the good of the country over personal matters. Patriotism trumps the personal” (page 116). Do you agree with the guard? Or should we protect ourselves and our loved ones before we act on behalf of our country? Have the actions taken by our government made you feel more or less secure?
9. He barely whispered, close to her ear, “ ‘I wonder by my troth . . .’ ” And she answered, in another world, “ ‘What thou and I
didst . . .’ ” And heard him, wondering, “ ‘Till we loved’ ” (page 129). What brings Andrea and Danny together so immediately and intensely? What is the effect of this subplot woven through the book?
10. During the sounding of the alarm that goes off at the hospital, “it seemed to [Andrea] that something really big had happened, not just to her or to her mother and father. The past had been cut off somehow and they were already living in the future, all of them” (page 209). What has cut off the past and propelled everyone out of the present and into the future?
11. When Phil joins the Andorra, bringing Vern along with him, he is rescuing both his son and himself. When does Phil begin to consider getting out, and why does it seem to be the only option? Is Phil acting out of bravery or cowardice? Is he a hero, or is he just running away?
12. When There Will Never Be Another You was first published in hardcover, the spring of 2007 had not yet happened. It was set in the immediate future and “infused with the anxieties of the present” (Publishers Weekly). Does this sense of unease still ring true now? How long might There Will Never Be Another You seem like a novel set in the imminent future?