You Again by Debra Jo Immergut
I would like to thank Sarah from Titan Books for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Titan Books
Published – Out Now
Price - £8.99 paperback £5.59 Kindle eBook
Abigail Willard first spots her from the back of a New York cab: the spitting image of Abby herself at age twenty-two--right down to the silver platforms and raspberry coat she wore as a young artist with a taste for wildness. But the real Abby is now forty-six and married, with a corporate job and two kids. As the girl vanishes into a rainy night, Abby is left shaken. Was this merely a hallucinatory side effect of working-mom stress? A message of sorts, sent to remind her of passions and dreams tossed aside? Or something more explosive and life-altering?
As weeks go by, Abby continues to spot her double around her old New York haunts--and soon, despite her better instincts, Abby finds herself tailing her look-alike. She is dogged by a nagging suspicion that there is a deeper mystery to figure out, one rooted far in her past. All the while, Abby's life starts to slip from her control: her marriage hits major turbulence, her teenage son drifts into a radical movement that portends a dark coming era. When her elusive double presents her with a dangerous proposition, Abby must decide how much she values the life she's built, and how deeply she knows herself.
Every now and then I think we all think about how exactly we got to where we are; did we have a choice; are we that different to our younger selves. In You Again Debra Jo Immergut presents a thriller with a difference a woman haunted by a version of her past she repeatedly meets twenty years later. It’s an unusual layered tale of retreat, change and taking action.
Abigail Willard is now a mother of two working on marketing artwork; her life as a promising art student long forgotten life is as it always will be. And then she glimpses as she travels New York a woman that looks like her younger self. Gradually she even manages to talk to the woman who definitely appears to be her younger self – initially alarmed to meet this woman who claims to be their future they talk about heir lives. While this is going on Abigail’s husband loses his job; her oldest son gets involved with a revolutionary movement and Abigail finds herself drawn to a detective. Everything she knows about who she was and is has to be questioned and Abigail needs to find out why this is all happening to her before it is too late.
This is a thriller where a murder is not the key story thread. Primarily told in Abigail’s voice through diary entries we see a woman faced with who she is versus who she wanted to be. Stuck in middle management offices versus an art career where many felt she was one of the brightest stars out there. In love with her family role yet drawn to a potential affair and then her normally level-headed son in 2015 is finding himself drawn to fighting the state and capitalism which part of her wants to admonish him and part to join in. I really like the complexity of Immergut’s approach making a character resemble what many of us many feel as we reach middle ages that our passion is burnt out but also showing that some of these choices are likely to lead to bad consequences.
Balanced with this as we unpeel Abigail’s life, we see the young woman she was/is was in quite a troubled place. An ended affair at work; a lover who was getting plunged into drugs, and torn between a desire for cash versus art. The grass is not greener in the past, but it does suggest a few changes in direction are needed. A lot of the novel is Abigail’s changes in direction. Finding she isn’t quite as dead as she feared. The thriller side is exactly how these two sides of her life are meeting – hallucination: imitator, time travel? The novel plays with expectations and at the end is still slightly ambiguous.
Less successful for me was the focus on the left wing brigade her son Peter gets mixed with. The use of the term antifa (even where the story is favourable0 felt a little laughable for an organisation that actually doesn’t exist. I did think the novel felt a little in search of a real protagonist a lot of the characters Abigail has to battle don’t make too much impact. Its all very interesting but not necessarily the most gripping tale – its more the mystery of the past self that pulled me along.
Overall a really unusual thriller that aims to do something different and captures a sense of the early 2016-16 concern that our world was heading for some darker changes. Those who enjoy a more traditional murder mystery may feel it lacks bite, but I found it an interesting journey despite the lack of a crime to punish.