And Again

A Novel

By: Jessica Chiarella

Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Joy Osmanski, Rebekkah Ross, Corey Brill

What would you do if you had a second chance at life?

Hannah, David, Connie, and Linda have been given the second chance of a lifetime—genetically perfect bodies as part of a medically advanced pilot program seeking FDA approval. Their new bodies are exact replicas of their old selves—without the deadly illnesses they suffered from. Even better, their imperfections have been erased. Blemishes, scars, and wrinkles have all disappeared, their bodies are pristine, their vision is impeccable.

Yet the fresh start they’ve been given is anything but perfect. Without their old bodies, their new physical identities have no memories. Hannah, an artistic prodigy, has to relearn how to hold a brush; David, a Congressman, grapples with his old habits; Connie, an actress whose stunning looks are restored after a protracted illness, tries to navigate an industry obsessed with physical beauty; and Linda, who spent eight years paralyzed after a car accident, now struggles to reconnect with a family that seems to have built a new life without her.

As each tries to re-enter their previous lives and relationships, they are faced with the question: how much of who you are rests not just in your mind, but in your heart and your body? In the spirit of Never Let Me Go and The Age of Miracles, And Again is an exciting debut about identity, second chances, and the courage to start life afresh.

Thoughtful and gritty

Who was your favorite character and why?

I thought Linda was the most interesting character and wish we could have had more insight into her. Having spent eight years imprisoned in a paralyzed body, I thought the exploration of what getting a new body was fascinating. She was the character whose change in circumstance was the most jarring, and I feel the author could have spent more time exploring it.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

Frankly, I think the narrators all did excellent jobs. However, it would have been easier to listen to if they had cast the three female characters as women with more distinctive voices -- all were pleasant and clear, but not so different from one another that they truly made those characters stand out.

Any additional comments?

Impressive debut novel. This novel is told from the points of view of four individuals, bound together as four terminally ill patients in an experimental program called SUBlife. The cutting edge medical program clones their bodies, but rids those clones of whatever ails them (brain tumor, lung cancer, paralysis, AIDS). While the story sounds like a science fiction plot, it is really more of a character study. The four newly healthy people, given respite from imminent death, meet weekly for a support group and try to adjust to life in their new bodies. Bodies which are free of all blemishes and worry lines, all scars and tattoos, all indicia of a life lived. The book explores what it is like to be brought back from almost certain death, how we interact with those around us who had to grapple with the imminent loss of someone dear, what our bodies and all their wear say about our lives and ourselves, and what cannot be merely transferred to a new vessel. Chiarella includes a number of lovely little hints and details about how these people are changed -- lack of dreams, fertility issues, loss of artistic skill, virgin taste buds and virgin bodies. She does not belabor the science, nor feel the need to exhaustively track down all the hitches that such a consciousness transfer might run into. Instead, it is through the four lives saved and settled into that we get vantage point into mortality and what it means to be human.

Provocative, timely and engaging

I really enjoyed this book. It is a timely topic, believable, well written with interesting characters and a nice plot. I look forward to future books by this author.

LOVED IT

I loved this book so much. It was an amazing concept. I'm recommending this book to everyone I know!

Real Potential Unfulfilled

I was excited to listen to this book because I was anticipating some genuine insights into human nature and the unfolding of a larger "world view," but I found the book very disappointing in these regards. As several other reviewers have noted, the major problem with this novel is that the four main characters are unlikeable people who have been given a second chance at life and are, to my mind, surprisingly ungrateful and wasteful of that chance. They are simultaneously self-absorbed and unself-aware. I think that Ms. Chiarella wanted us to draw certain understandings from the characters' experiences because she came very close to lecturing her readers on what was obvious to us but, oddly enough, not to her characters. It would have been better had she let these life lessons come through more subtly via the evolution of her characters over their first year past Sub-Life. Unfortunately, what might have been a clever and fascinating conceit was quite poorly executed.

About the narration: I love to listen to Julia Whelan read--as long as she is reading female characters. All of her males, however, sound like hoarse old men no matter the age they are supposed to be. Joy Osmanski did a nice job, but Rebekkah Ross and Corey Brill were simply adequate.

great story that makes you think

I really enjoyed this story. I loved hearing about each individual back story. I was thinking how cool it would be if this could really happen, then I thought of the implications of such a thing. This book used a lottery system to choose participants for the program, but 1 person got into the program illegally. I can see that actually getting very out if hand. I would have liked to see this story delve deeper into some of the ethical debates behind cloning. overall it was fascinating.