Await Your Reply

I don't think I've ever done this, but I finished Dan Chaon's book Await Your Reply and flipped back to the front and read it again. Well, sort of. I admit I picked through it and no, it wasn't because I was totally confused (I wasn't). I did regret not being able to read Russian though that was irrelevent to my enjoyment (but I am taking along the passage on Friday when I see a Russian-reading friend just to make sure). No, I started the book over to see how all the parts fit together. I loved every moment I was reading this book, but I wanted to make sure I had understood it all.

Chaon tells the story of the lost in society. Or rather, of those trying to be lost and stay lost or become someone else, reinvent themselves, destroy their old selves, become new or better than they were. There's college student Ryan who is handed information about his past that totally changes everything he's ever believed. There's Lucy Lattimore, recent graduate of a midwestern high school who dreams of better things when she leaves town with her former teacher (okay, mostly she's thinking of money, but she's also escaping her orphan past, her "slow" sister with pet rats, and being called "Licey"). There's also Miles Cheshire, entering his thirties and still searching for his lost twin who may or may not be a criminal mastermind, who may or may not be schizophrenic, who may or may not have killed people and defrauded institutions, but is most certainly a part of Miles and of Miles' very ability to exist. These stories and lives eventually intertwine which I feared would be contrived, but about half-way through (right about the time I was wondering if Miles was the schizophrenic one and whether or not his twin Hayden actually existed) I decided it didn't matter if the story ever felt contrived because each character was so wonderful.

The disparate points of view suffer from the usual switching narration in that sometime you don't want to let go of a character or situation to wander off and read about another, but those moments are short-lived. The patience it requires to read such a book pays off well because Chaon's writing is so nice. I was intrigued by each story.

A short warning: Await Your Reply starts off with a severed hand. The story of just how that hand came to be severed--which you have to wait quite awhile for--is truly horrifying, but this event is an anomaly in the book. Await Your Reply is not a violent book, though it's not exactly a happy book either. It's a look at the world and what we want our role in it to be. It is, in a strange way, a book about family and connections we make to each other and our attempts to create families out of acquaintances. It was a little sad to read that Dan Chaon's wife died of ovarian cancer just as he finished the book and I can't help but wonder if some of the gloom that pervades this book is a reflection of that. This is not an unhappy book--characters more or less end up as they should or could--and if the pieces of the giant puzzle don't fall in just the way you think they should, read it again. See if you can figure it out.

I also highly recommend Dan Chaon's You Remind Me of Me, though in looking back at it, I'm reminded of the sad elements in that book (primarily the story of the girl in the mid-sixties who's in a home of unwed mothers). Chaon's writing is strong and his characters always interesting. I'll get back to you all on that Russian.