I suppose what struck me most about Dan Chaon's You Remind Me of Me--aside from the metaphorical language, and everything else I can't think of right now--is that it wasn't until I'd read about seventy pages that I realized, Aw, hell...I've got absolutely no idea where this is going.
Which thought was closely followed by, And...so?
Seventy pages, of a 350 page novel. That's about a fifth of the book. That's a long time to remain mostly in the dark, without even realizing it is dark.
See, what I didn't realize when I started the book was that Dan Chaon had made a simple request of me, before I ever picked up the book. He'd asked me to trust him. To trust that these pages were going somewhere, were directed. To trust him that the ride was going to be worth it, and that the destination would repay the effort put into the trip. What I didn't realize was that each time I turned the page, I was responding with a yes. I didn't see any of this, because each page is a destination. The language (metaphorical and otherwise) and the story telling were so very compelling, they exploded any possible doubts.
While it's true that anyone who puts a book out there for people to use cash to purchase and time to read makes a similar contract with the reader--when I hand over my sixteen bucks, I expect my books to entertain and to provoke thought (often in different measures)--when you open your book with four chapters that feel almost completely unrelated to each other, four points of view that are only tenuously connected by translucent threads of fact, you're grabbing that demand and boldfacing and underlining it. Lesser writers would flub this. Dan Chaon, needless to say, does not.
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