Recent Raves

I recently received a Barnes and Noble gift card for my birthday, so I went to a local branch to find the book Someday This Pain May Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron. After searching all through the new fiction releases and not finding it, I went to ask for it at the information desk. The store did have the book, under "YA" or Young Adult fiction.

It's a bit incomprehensible to me that a writer of Cameron's stature should have his latest release shelved under "YA" rather than general fiction just because the narrator who's just out of high school. It's a bit like putting The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, a book with a juvenile narrator, with the kiddie books.

But in fact, Cameron's publisher has put out the book through its YA division, and perhaps they feel that in today's shaky marketplace for fiction, this is the best economic strategy. A bit shortsighted in my opinion, because Someday This Pain May Be Useful to You is not only Peter Cameron's strongest book, but also one of the most compelling reads in contemporary fiction.

At the book's center is James Sveck, a shockingly self-aware and intelligent high school graduate who feels simultaneously above and left out of the mainstream world. With a minimum of fuss and a maximum of acute sensitivity for language, Cameron captures this young man's heartbreaking alienation with humor and depth. The result is the kind of book that disappoints in only one respect: it ends.

This is prime entertainment, not for kiddies, but for sentient and serious readers of literature. Miss this book at your own peril.