Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2007
240 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
It's time for eighteen-year-old James Sveck to begin his freshman year at Brown. Instead, he’s surfing the real estate listings, searching for a sanctuary—a nice farmhouse in Kansas, perhaps. Although James lives in twenty-first-century Manhattan, he's more at home in the faraway worlds of Eric Rohmer or Anthony Trollope—or his favorite writer, the obscure and tragic Denton Welch. James's sense of dislocation is exacerbated by his willfully self-absorbed parents, a disdainful sister, his Teutonically cryptic shrink, and an increasingly vague, D-list celebrity grandmother. Compounding matters is James's growing infatuation with a handsome male colleague at the art gallery his mother owns, where James supposedly works at his summer job but where he actually plots his escape to the prairie.
"Starred Review. Cameron’s power is his ability to distill a particular world and social experience with great specificity while still allowing the reader to access the deep well of our shared humanity." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Starred Review. Cameron makes a singularly auspicious entry into the world of YA with this beautifully conceived and written coming-of-age novel that is, at turns, funny, sad, tender, and sophisticated." - Booklist.
"Deliciously vital right from the start ... Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is a piece of vocal virtuosity and possibly Cameron's best book ... The novel possesses too much emotional complexity and artfulness of construction to exclude adult readers ... Stunning." - The New York Review of Books.
This information about Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Peter Cameron is the author of several novels for adults, including Andorra and The City of Your Final Destination. He lives in New York City.
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