Publishers Weekly
10/19/2015
A sick, faded actress, a young art student with lung cancer, a mother who’s been paralyzed for eight years, and an arrogant congressman with an aggressive brain tumor form an unlikely cohort whose alternating perspectives reveal what they now have in common. All newly emerged into physically healed versions of themselves following a memory “transfer,” these four are prototypes of SUBlife, a cloning-based alternative to untimely death that provides new and improved substitute bodies. The problem is that no one is the same afterward, or even what other people expect them to be. Hannah’s tattoos are gone, David can’t stomach coffee or meat, and sensations in general are overpowering. Linda, who was paralyzed, is struggling with communication again after years of only being able to blink. “Everything feels too massive, and too terrifying,” she thinks. “One for no. Two for yes. Things were so much simpler before.” Unfortunately, the story never distinguishes itself from its shtick, despite Chiarella’s dogged attempts to translate the ideas into a novel. The unrelenting inner monologue of each character becomes banal, and the big challenges of their new lives never feel as interesting or as true as the much smaller details. (Jan.)
San Diego Book Review
"And Again is a fascinating and disturbing glimpse of a medical technology that some believe the future may hold for our society.
Shelf Awareness
Chiarella provides a finely nuanced look at four people whose return to the living feels miraculous but provides no magical answers or happy endings in the long run. The body transfer serves easily as allegory for any major life change; we are called upon in life to remake ourselves at some point. Strength and resilience abound in this deeply felt debut.
USA Today (3.5 out of 4 stars)
"Chiarella’s characters are well drawn, and their anguishes ring true. Do the people who love us in sickness and health really love us, or do they act out of a sense of duty? The SUBS have gotten a reprieve; what will they do with their second chance? Chiarella expresses their deep desires and yearnings with poetic compassion."
The Absolute
And Again is a heartbreaking exploration of what it means to be human as well as the moral dangers of scientific advancement.
RT Reviews
"[Jessica Chiarella] does an amazing job moving from character to character and delving into their inner thoughts. The idea of creating human clones is already a controversial subject, but this book offers an eye-opening view to the mental and psychological strain that it can cause. The vulnerability and self-consciousness of the characters makes them easy to relate to and endearing."
Paste Magazine
AND AGAIN delivers a stunning journey challenging the nature of identity, weaving four stories into a cohesive narrative. You’ll meet Hannah, an artistic prodigy, David, a congressman, Connie, an actress, and Linda, a wife and mother who lived completely paralyzed for eight years. As Chiarella gradually reveals the characters’ pasts in tandem with their present courses, she illuminates the reality that their bodies—and our own—determine identity far more than expected.
From the Publisher
What a stunning first novel! And Again was continually haunting me, and just when I thought I knew these characters, who are so vivid and singular in their desires and frailties, and yet so universal in their humanity, they surprised me once more until the pages were finished and I was left pondering our lives, our future, and how love still works. Jessica Chiarella has so much talent."
—Susan Straight, author of Between Heaven and Here
"AND AGAIN is a moving and beautifully crafted novel about the frailty of identity, the illusion of control, and the enduring power of love. A fantastic debut."
—Laila Lalami, author of The Moor's Account, Pulitzer Prize finalist and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
"Contemplative . . . Chiarella’s entrancing prose and fully fleshed characters should garner widespread, enthusiastic praise.”—Booklist
Chicago Review of Books
"Chiarella is also a pioneer as a writer, spinning a plot that’s as groundbreaking as the medical procedure Linda, David, Connie, and Hannah undergo."
Kirkus Reviews
2015-10-08
Following an experimental medical procedure, four patients struggle to resume their pre-illness lives. Connie, Linda, Hannah, and David were all near death when they were selected for a trial medical program in which their memories are transplanted into healthy clones of their bodies. Previously strangers, the four meet at a support group they attend over the course of a year as they come to terms with their new, now healthy bodies. Connie, a former actress who was once afflicted with AIDS, considers returning to Los Angeles after her five-year illness but realizes her only meaningful relationship is with her blind neighbor. Linda, a mother who was locked inside her paralyzed body for eight years following a car accident, returns home to find her husband and two children have become accustomed to her absence. David, a conservative congressman, attempts to cope with the stress of hiding his new, cloned body from his constituents, as well as the strings he pulled to be accepted into the program, and begins an affair with Hannah, a young artist whose relationship with her husband, Sam, unravels, in part because she can no longer remember how to paint. Chiarella alternates among the four narratives without forcing connections between the characters and skillfully raises questions about how much of one's identity is rooted within one's body. One minor drawback for this debut novel is the imbalance of these narratives, as Hannah is the most defined of all the characters, while Connie and Linda never quite feel fully realized. However, Chiarella's engaging writing creates so many haunting moments that readers will find themselves moving quickly through the story, as well as awaiting her next work. This is a novel about what it means to be human, with all the flaws and vulnerabilities that implies, and whether we can ever truly begin again.
