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Executive Times |
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2006 Book Reviews |
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There
Will Never Be Another You by Carolyn See |
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Rating: |
** |
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(Mildly Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Children Carolyn See’s new novel, There
Will Never Be Another You, presents her view of living in a world facing
terror. Through presenting an ensemble of interlocking family relationships,
See highlights the special relationship between parents and children that
endure, no matter what else happens. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of
a chapter titled, “Phil,” pp. 28-33: He saw the
first cat on his way to work about seven in the morning. It was gray against
the gray of the curb, barely visible paws, limbs stretched to the maximum
that only happens when cats die, its furry face not visible. Then he drove
past and it was gone. He saw his
morning’s patients, dropped down to the cafeteria for coffee and a sandwich,
sat alone by the window, looked out, and saw another one, black, lined up
against a shrub, creating its own shadow; you could hardly see the thing. But
it didn’t look good. He went back upstairs, holding his food in the elevator;
he’d finish eating back at his desk. From his
office window he saw another, lopped over in the crotch of a tree—or no, it
was farther up, really, out on a branch near the top. And he could see its
face this time, pulled back in a grimace, jaws set wide. God! It made him go out and ask Kathi
if she’d noticed anything. “Did you see those cats?” She stopped what she was doing on the computer and looked
at him. “I’m sorry?” “Those cats. I saw three dead cats this morning.” “I hate those things. The way people come out here and
feed them. They’re wild. And dirty.” “Well, three of them are dead now. I saw three.” “Probably some kind of distemper.” “Do you think we ought to call somebody? Somebody to pick
them up?” By we, he meant her, of course. She gave him a thoughtful look and picked up the phone.
“This is Dr. Fuchs’s office down in the He told her. She repeated it to the person on the other
end of the line. “Yes. Because he says it’s a health hazard, at the very
least.” He went back into his office and sipped at his cooling
coffee. Not much to do. He went out past his receptionist again and picked up
a magazine—Outdoor—and took it back inside with him. And looked absently,
again, out his window. A cherry picker had gotten here in record time and was
creaking cautiously up into the tree outside and below his window. The guy
in the picker was dressed in white, in what looked like a HAZMAT outfit
except it didn’t have any lettering, and his face was covered with a clear
plastic mask. He was using pincers about three feet long. He reached gingerly
out to the branch, pinched the cat, brought it back in to
the platform he was standing on, and—Phil saw now—dropped it onto a
stack of what had to be maybe eighteen or twenty other cats. Phil
picked up the phone and called his pal Fred, in the next wing. “Hey. Have you
seen the cats?” A female
voice answered. “He stepped out of the office. May I have him call you back?” “Uh,
Nikki, this is Dr. Fuchs. If you’d have him give me a call back at his
convenience.. . .“ But when
Fred called back it was his own turn to be with a patient, and they played
tag like that until close to five that afternoon. One of his patients did
mention that he’d seen two Animal Control trucks pulled up to the Emergency
Room entrance, and could it be something like a pit bull attack? Because why
else would they be there? Phil got
scared. He called Felicia. “What is
it?” she said. “What’s wrong?” “Have you
seen anything weird on television?” “No, I’ve
been out. I got all the knives sharpened. It cost seventy-two dollars! But
you know that nick in the ham knife? They smoothed it over. It looks
brand-new.” “That’s
good,” he said. “What’s wrong?” Her voice was sharp. “Nothing. I may be a
little late, is all. Not too late. Maybe an hour.” “You be
sure and call me. Is it a brush fire? Do you want me to see if there’s a
brush fire?” “It’s
nothing, honey.” He went
into a cubicle where a truly awful case of psoriasis universalis
was waiting for him. Like a “You know,
Jason, there’s another thing we can try. It’s kind of drastic, but it could
be worth it. There are some Big heavy
tears rolled down the kid’s cheeks and dropped onto his raw chest. “It’s not
going to work,” he cried. “Nothing’s going to fix this.” “Ah, come on, Jason. Don’t say that.” He knew he
should touch the kid, take hold of his shoulder, pat him on the back,
something. But he couldn’t. He wrote
out a prescription for a stronger ointment. Waited for the kid to put on his
shirt. Even looked, not so covertly, at his watch. Picked up the cubicle
phone when it rang. “Can you get out for a drink?” Fred’s voice. Research
scientist. Spent his days with rabbits and chickens. “I’m with the last patient of the day.” “Good. Outside the main doors in fifteen minutes.” “There’s something I want to ask you about.” He watched
the kid tuck in his shirt, duck his head to look in the wall mirror, run a
comb through his hair. “On the steps. Fifteen minutes.” Fred was waiting for him. Five o’clock. Time for a drink.
They started walking south, toward downtown Westwood, down long shallow
cement steps, across the big brick hospital courtyard. “Did you hear?” Fred asked. “I was going to ask you.” His heart, his stomach clenched. “They screwed up.” “Someone in the bio lab. They’re having a shit fit over
there. We’re all locked out.” “Is that what it is with the cats?” “Yeah. As long as it just stays with the cats. It started with some monkeys, or
so I’ve been hearing, this long afternoon.” “A virus? Bacteria?” Phil tried to keep his voice steady. “They’re not saying.” “Who’s the they?” “Guys I know. And a secretary. And I talked to one of the
Animal Control people.” “The Palomino?” Their favorite place to drink, down in the It was
five blocks away, downhill. Walking back to their cars would give them a
chance to sober up a little. “What
about the media? Shouldn’t someone tell them what’s going on?” “We don’t know what’s going on.” They
walked in silence, past pedicure parlors and movie theaters and fast-food
restaurants—Westwood was nothing like the pretty little California college
town he remembered from his youth—and went in gratefully through Palomino’s
big doors into a big room and up to a long, swank, curving bar. Big abstract
paintings covered the walls. Manet reproductions,
Leger. They both ordered martinis. “It could
just be distemper.” “Or
someone got sick and tired of all the feral cats on campus. “Sure.” “Well, a lot of people don’t like them.
Kathi doesn’t like them. Fred looked interested. “Want to go
find out about the monkeys?” “Hell, no!” I read There
Will Never Be Another You just after I read Cormac
McCarthy’s The
Road. In some ways, the subject matter was the same, but the approach to
the theme was miles apart. My rating of There
Will Never Be Another You was lower because of how much more I liked The Road. Steve Hopkins,
November 20, 2006 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the December
2006 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/There
Will Never Be Another You.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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