Synopses & Reviews
Advance praise for Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
"Not since The Catcher in the Rye has a novel captured the deep and almost physical ache of adolescent existential sadness as trenchantly as the perfectly titled Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. You don't have to be eighteen to relate to James Dunfour Sveck and his sense of alienation from a world he doesn't understand, nor to be profoundly moved by his story. Told with compassion, insight, humor, and hope, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You deserves to be read by readers of all ages for years to come. I would have loved it as a teenager, and I love it now." --James Howe, author of The Misfits
"As I drew near the end of Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, I read more and more slowly because I didn't want to leave James. With his devotion to precise English, his dislike of most other people--especially those his own age--and his adoration of his grandmother and old houses, James is the ideal antihero and companion. And, most important of all, he never utters a dull sentence. This is
a riveting, suspenseful, witty, and very funny novel." --Margot Livesey, author of Banishing Verona
"Peter Cameron is one of my favorite writers, and this is one of his best books, a shrewd, funny, and at times painful story about the difficulty of becoming an adult. James is a wonderful narrator--brilliant and witty, remarkably observant, and just a little infuriating. His voice is so irresistible you'll hate to put the book down." --Stephen McCauley, author of Alternatives to Sex
"The effect that comes from reading this comedic and beautiful novel is one that I particularly love and only happens with certain books--this feeling that you madly adore the narrator, that you've made this new intimate friend, and that for a little while (the duration of the book, at least) you're a little bit less alone in the world." --Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir! and The Extra Man
Review
"Cameron's power is his ability to distill a particular world and social experience with great specificity while still allowing the reader to access the deep well of our shared humanity." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"A critically acclaimed author of adult fiction, Cameron makes a singularly auspicious entry into the world of YA with this beautifully conceived and written coming of age novel that is, at turns, funny, sad, tender, and sophisticated." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"Not since The Catcher in the Rye has a novel captured the deep and almost physical ache of adolescent existential sadness as trenchantly as the perfectly titled Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. You don't have to be eighteen to relate to James Dunfour Sveck and his sense of alienation from a world he doesn't understand, nor to be profoundly moved by his story. Told with compassion, insight, humor, and hope, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You deserves to be read by readers of all ages for years to come. I would have loved it as a teenager, and I love it now." James Howe, author of The Misfits
Review
"As I drew near the end of Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, I read more and more slowly because I didn't want to leave James. With his devotion to precise English, his dislike of most other people especially those his own age and his adoration of his grandmother and old houses, James is the ideal antihero and companion. And, most important of all, he never utters a dull sentence. This is a riveting, suspenseful, witty, and very funny novel." Margot Livesey, author of Banishing Verona
Review
"The effect that comes from reading this comedic and beautiful novel is one that I particularly love and only happens with certain books this feeling that you madly adore the narrator, that you've made this new intimate friend, and that for a little while (the duration of the book, at least) you're a little bit less alone in the world." Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir! and The Extra Man
Synopsis
It's time for eighteen-year-old James Sveck to begin his freshman year at Brown. Instead, he's surfing the real estate listings, searching for a sanctuary a nice farmhouse in Kansas, perhaps. Although James lives in twenty-first-century Manhattan, he's more at home in the faraway worlds of Eric Rohmer or Anthony Trollope or his favorite writer, the obscure and tragic Denton Welch. James's sense of dislocation is exacerbated by his willfully self-absorbed parents, a disdainful sister, his Teutonically cryptic shrink, and an increasingly vague, D-list celebrity grandmother. Compounding matters is James's growing infatuation with a handsome male colleague at the art gallery his mother owns, where James supposedly works at his summer job but where he actually plots his escape to the prairie.
In the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Booklist has hailed Cameron as "one of the best writers about middle-class youth since Salinger"), Peter Cameron paints an indelible portrait of a teenage hero holding out for a better grownup world.
Synopsis
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the story of James Sveck, a sophisticated, vulnerable young man with a deep appreciation for the world and no idea how to live in it. James is eighteen, the child of divorced parents living in Manhattan. Articulate, sensitive, and cynical, he rejects all of the assumptions that govern the adult world around him-including the expectation that he will go to college in the fall. He would prefer to move to an old house in a small town somewhere in the Midwest. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You takes place over a few broiling days in the summer of 2003 as James confides in his sympathetic grandmother, stymies his canny therapist, deplores his pretentious sister, and devises a fake online identity in order to pursue his crush on a much older coworker. Nothing turns out how he'd expected.
"Possibly one of the all-time great New York books, not to mention an archly comic gem" (Peter Gadol, LA Weekly), Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the insightful, powerfully moving story of a young man questioning his times, his family, his world, and himself.
Synopsis
Its time for eighteen-year-old James Sveck to begin his freshman year at Brown. Instead, hes surfing the real estate listings, searching for a sanctuary—a nice farmhouse in Kansas, perhaps. Although James lives in twenty-first-century Manhattan, hes more at home in the faraway worlds of Eric Rohmer or Anthony Trollope—or his favorite writer, the obscure and tragic Denton Welch. Jamess sense of dislocation is exacerbated by his willfully self-absorbed parents, a disdainful sister, his Teutonically cryptic shrink, and an increasingly vague, D-list celebrity grandmother. Compounding matters is Jamess growing infatuation with a handsome male colleague at the art gallery his mother owns, where James supposedly works at his summer job but where he actually plots his escape to the prairie.
In the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Booklist has hailed Cameron as “one of the best writers about middle-class youth since Salinger”), Peter Cameron paints an indelible portrait of a teenage hero holding out for a better grownup world. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
About the Author
PETER CAMERON's work has appeared in The New Yorker and he is the author of several novels for adults, including Andorra and The City of Your Final Destination. He lives in New York City.
Reading Group Guide
1. Reflect on the opening quotations. Do they set a tone for the book? How does the Denton Welch quotation expand upon the one from Ovid?
2. James believes adults have the ability to deceive themselves (p. 4). Does James include himself among adults? Why or why not? Does he deceive himself? Is James a reliable narrator?
3. When James is relating emotionally charged scenes, he often digresses or makes observations that seem to be only loosely connected to the subject at hand. What purpose do these digressions/observations serve? What do they reveal about James? What pathos to they add to the scenes? Consider the scene on page 7: Jamess mother has come home from her honeymoon early and alone, demanding a glass of water. As James watches her drink, hes reminded that birds with their heads tilted back, beaks open, will drown in a rainstorm. Find and discuss other examples.
4. James is always looking at houses on-line. What do you think he is seeking?
5. Why doesnt James want to go to college? How does the “horrible experience” (p. 39) in Washington, D.C. affect his decision? Why does it take so long for James to describe this experience? What is it about Nareems invitation that propels him to run (pp. 116-117)?
6. Search online for images of the Thomas Cole paintings described on pages 129-131. Discuss Jamess reaction to them.
7. James likes his coworker, John Webster, very much. Why, then, does James post a false profile on Gent4Gent to entice John? John is hurt and angry and confronts James. How does this episode help James define the man he wants to become?
8. James indicates that one of his favorite people is his grandmother Nanette. Why? Examine his description of her and her house. Is his perception of Nanette influencing his dream of a home in Kansas? What realization about college does James have while sitting in her kitchen?