This (Debra Jo Immergut's second novel) turned out to be a phenomenal book, although at first I didn't think I was going to care for it and found the email excerpts gimmicky. But this is a book for anyone who has had to set aside creative aspirations in spite of great, documented talent in order to pay the bills, and finds herself in her mid-forties, taking care of a family, wondering whether she made the right choice. The beginning was a bit slow for me - the premise was interesting, where a middle-aged woman sees her twenty-two-year-old self roaming her/their old haunts in New York, but the writing was a bit scattered and choppy and it was good but not a page turner. Then, with the auction and the introduction of the balcony turning point with Eli (I'm trying hard not to give away any spoiler!), the book delivered sucker punch after sucker punch and I just couldn't put it down, although I didn't care that much about the son and the related subplot except for the final twists at Mariah's party and later. I read the last 2/3 or so in one day. It was really well done. Subplots came together nicely. This book will stay with me a long time.
I suppose You again will only resonate with a fraction of the book-reading public (not everyone seems slated for a staggeringly successful career in the arts and then chooses paying the bills), but the readers it resonates with will find themselves deeply moved. Interestingly enough, Ms Immergut herself chose paying the bills in a New York corporate career for decades after her MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop before getting laid off and returning to fiction writing. I am glad she did. An impressive novel.
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