Again and Again

by Juliet Wittman

Overview

Again and Again takes place in cancerland, a world no one wants to visit. The novel's story is told by Paula, a nurse, and Chloe, a 23-year-old with a terminal diagnosis. Chloe, fierce, fragile, passionate, generous and self-absorbed--yes, all those things--is determined to defeat her own death and to save four-year-old Colin, whose insurance company is refusing the treatment that can save his life. The two women and a handful of other patients embark on a quest that veers between comedy and tragedy. They help and encourage each other, weep and rejoice together, and refuse to give up a task that often seems impossible. After all, they reason, what do they have to lose? Again and Again is about illness, female bonding, love and fear, and the intense joy and vitality that can inform lives lived in the shadow of death.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780999445785
Publisher:	Beck and Branch
Publication date:	05/01/2023
Pages:	294
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Juliet Wittman's memoir, Breast Cancer Journal: A Century of Petals, was named a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Colorado Book Award. She is an investigative reporter, theater critic, and University of Colorado writing instructor. She is the author of Stockers' Kitchen, a critically praised novel. She has written many short stories and essays and has won several journalism awards.

Editorial Reviews

2023-07-07
In Wittman’s novel, an oncology nurse and a handful of patients with only months to live decide to try to save the youngest among them—and steal a horse along the way.

About a fourth of the way into this quiet stunner of a novel set in Colorado, a nurse in her late 20s named Paula comes to a frightening realization that the most important people in her circle are likely to die soon of cancer, and it’s not the only heartache awaiting her. This is where a typical story plants its hook or reveals a quest. But there’s nothing that beats the odds, as even cancer isn’t the villain in this thoughtful novel about life and death, grief and love. In real life, there’s often a clear answer: One goes on, whether one chooses to or not. “Thread your arm through mine,” Paula imagines telling her friends and patients. “We’ll walk this together.” Readers who go on may be surprised at how effortlessly a mundane moment can turn into a scene that can leave them shaken. Paula’s circle includes 23-year-old Chloe Braverman, whose narrator voice alternates with Paula’s; Linda, a Christian woman with two young children about whom “there was something impermeable and too bright”; Doris, an older woman who’s led a full life and becomes a mother to them all; and Colin, a 3-year-old boy whose cancer is curable if the group can raise $250,000 for a bone marrow transplant. That quest, like most quests in the real world, is derailed by failures, cast aside by doubt, and picked up again and again. The characters emerge as three-dimensional: They’re not brave all the time, nor angry all the time, nor sure in their beliefs. They’re mercurial—certain and uncertain, by turns. They rely on one another and don’t always come through. They fail, they quit, they start again as the inevitable draws nearer. And then there’s the story’s horses—a metaphorical black horse of fear and a real-life animal in need of rescue.

True to its title, this novel contains several worthy endings and, on its last page, presents a new beginning.

Kirkus Reviews