Notwithstanding his own belief that people "don't have very interesting lives," he's more than able to entertain us for 225 pages about his own. What Peter Cameron realizes, as his character doesn't, is that even mundane lives and everyday thoughts can indeed be "interesting." The irony here, of course, is that, although not too many teenagers have a mother who breaks off her latest marriage during the honeymoon, James's experiences are not all that unique and his story, on its own, is not all that compelling.
For some reason I think you should only say something if it's interesting or absolutely has to be said." "I don't like people in general and people my age in particular, and people my age are the ones who go to college." He also finds everyone else boring: "People, at least in my experience, rarely say anything interesting to each other. James Sveck has a problem: he's been accepted into Brown and he's not even sure he wants to go to college. See also: Brown University Sexual orientation (confusion thereof) Dinner theater Poodles (standard). Often hilarious, deeply compassionate, smart, and lyrical, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is every bit as sui generis as James Sveck himself. The engaging voice of our idiosyncratic antihero is deftly captured by the adroit prose of Peter Cameron. James?s archly comic bravado fuels this sharply observed novel of a teen adrift in an adult world, struggling to make sense of the problems of love and of lack.
īut: as the summer gets hotter, James comes to recognize the wrenching truth of his emotions. In re: James Sveck?misunderstood by a capricious mother, a self-absorbed father, a mordant older sister,Įt alia: his Teutonic therapist, his D-list celebrity grandmother, his unnervingly attractive art gallery colleague. Then: he?ll start anew (move to the Midwest?). If: his future (i.e., college) seems completely meaningless, not to mention terrifying. IN RE: James Sveck?eighteen-year-old New Yorker, charming, precocious, confused, doesn?t quite fit in (doesn?t really want to),
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