READER BE ADVISED: Although I rushed through re-reading a Vonnegut novel just to get to this new Jonathan Evison book in time for print, I’m not going to attempt a review of it. If you’re into reviews, there’s plenty out there to peruse. The Bainbridge-Island-raised author has been in the news fairly consistently in the book world since his second book became a breakout bestseller more than ten years ago. Reviews hit the big papers and indie journals every time he puts out a new book, and he’s been on a clip of releasing a book a year since 2021. It’s kind of impressive.
His fifth book, 2018’s ‘Lawn Boy,’ was wrapped up in the recent rash of book-banning across the country, targeted mostly at LGBTQ books and authors, after some parents found ‘sexually explicit’ LGBTQ content in Evison’s story, lambasted it pedophilic and homoerotic, and demanded it removed from school libraries. Multiple states followed suit.
Five years earlier, that same book had won an Alex Award from the American Library Association, which are given yearly to the top ten books written for adults that hold special appeal for youth ages 12-18.
But that’s not why I’m not going to attempt a review of Evison’s newest novel ‘Again And Again.’
To be fair, I’m only halfway through the book. I’ve only been properly introduced to less than half of the narrator’s purported past lives. But I can report that it starts with an old man named Eugene in a Southern California elderly care home, waiting–spoiler: hoping–for death. In his current lifetime, he says he’s been alive for 105 years, but in total, he says he’s lived more than a thousand years in various incarnations, chasing the lost love of his life. Eugene says he’s ready for it all to be over. Then, he finds companionship–and someone who might not think he’s crazy–in a 20-something-year-old kid who works at the facility, listens to and cares about Eugene and the stories of his past lives, referring to him with brevity and giving him the nickname, ‘Geno.’
Halfway through the book, I’ve been properly acquainted with the first of Geno’s past lives—an 11th-century deadbeat, alone-in-the-world street urchin that strangley reminds me of Aladdin. I’ve met the love of his life, Gaya, the first person with whom he says he found companionship, the person he’s been trying to get back to all these 1,000 years. And I’ve had some brief encounters with his life spent as Oscar Wilde’s cat. But I haven’t yet got spend much time with the past lives of the Incan princess, the Polynesian girl, or the enslaved member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition…
In my mind, it’s never fair to review a book before you’ve finished it. But, still, not why I’m not going to attempt a review.
After cracking the first of his patented author talk craft beers, Evison opened the first night of the ‘Again & Again’ book tour last month at Eagle Harbor Books by asking the audience for a show of hands of who felt like they’d lived a past life. A decent amount of hands went up. I was in the back of the room, drinking spiked cider the bookstore had put out on that cold, wet night while Evison and the moderator Jim Thomsen eased into the awkwardness of trying to talk about a book they both agree is a difficult book to talk about because it asks the reader to put the pieces together as they move through the story.
I think it was beer number two when Evison got rolling and started riffing on the reviews that book had been getting in the national press. He had more than a few choice words for a Washington Post reviewer, a friend of his, he said, who gave the book a scathing write up.
Also, not why I’m not going to attempt a review.
I was just there for the spiked cider. And to give props to an author I’d admired since I met him almost 20 years ago before the breakout bestseller. Maybe try to bum a beer from the cooler he brings to all of his readings. I was at the end of the book-signing line after the event, trying-and-failing to make conversation with the booksellers and helping them clean up to kill time. When I finally got to the front of the line, the guy in front of me was chatting up Evison about making movies and the bookseller was telling Evison about so-and-so who had called the bookstore, gushed about his work, and said he must come to Manhattan for a reading.
I was standing there, eyeballing the beers, waiting for an opening to sneak one or at least give the guy a hello. The bookseller probably saw me and quietly takes the bucket of beers to the back office for “safekeeping.”
Bummer.
The author turns his attention to me. ‘What’s up with you, you don’t have a book in your hand?’ he asks.
I did. I’d already taken it to the car. It hadn’t dawned on me to get it signed. I just wanted to catch up for a minute after all these years. I introduced myself. He had a few choice words for me as a ‘reviewer’ about having taken an unflattering photo of him–one which I don’t remember–all those years ago, and a remark about my ripped up jeans and work shirt, which I was still wearing since I’d driven an hour to the island straight from work in order to make it in time for his reading…
Still, not why I’m not going to attempt a review.
I’m not gonna do a review, because It feels like this book would read better without reading the reviews. Evison said he deliberately constructed it as a puzzle for the reader to put together. That’s why there’s a puzzle on the front cover.
He’s at the stage in his writing where he writes with the reader in mind like that. He calls it a dance. And that is a rad way to look at it. It’s always more fun to dance without someone telling you how you should be dancing. // JAMES MUNK
PICK UP ‘AGAIN AND AGAIN’ By Jonathan Evison wherever you get books. And buy from your local merchants and creators this shopping season.
