I See You Everywhere
by Julia Glass
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Book Summary Information
Author: Julia GlassEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-10-14
ISBN: 0375422757
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Book Reviews of I See You Everywhere
Book Review: Those who are looking for a page-turning narrative would be better served elsewhere
Summary: 5 Stars
"We are as different as white chocolate and seaweed," considers one of the sisters at the center of Julia Glass's third work of fiction, I SEE YOU EVERYWHERE. Novels about sisters who are polar opposites, who often live life in tension with one another, are nothing new. Glass's talent, however, is to find perceptive moments of clarity within well-worn territory. Here she uses an episodic storytelling technique similar to the one she employed with great success in her National Book Award-winning novel THREE JUNES.
Louisa and Clement (Clem) Jardine are young adults when the the book opens in 1980. The initial chapters, which are narrated partly in Louisa's voice and partly in Clem's, give readers insight into the sisters' common bonds as well as their striking differences. They come from gentility. Their mother is a former Minnesota farm girl who has taken to the manor lifestyle with aplomb, breeding championship hunting dogs and leading regular fox hunts near the family's Rhode Island home. Their father is often in their mother's shadow, a successful but shy businessman who is happiest when pottering around in his gardens. The girls' mother is a big believer in heredity, in the ability of genes (and bloodlines) to shape character --- but her daughters appear to come from different stock entirely.
Louisa is older by four years, and she fulfills many of the stereotypes of oldest children. Cautious, responsible Louisa has a plan for her future, and she is often flummoxed by what she sees as Clem's recklessness and lack of planning. Louisa, who starts out as an artist and later turns to writing about art, is most at home in urban settings. In fact, her unease in nature is at the heart of the first chapter, in which Clem has to save her older sister from drowning in a Vermont swimming hole. Humiliated, Louisa resents her loss of control --- control, after all, is at the center of her personal philosophy. As for romance, Louisa also values stability and control, as, over the course of the novel, she searches (mostly unsuccessfully) for the ideal mate who can provide her with the perfect mix of passion and predictability.
Passion is also on Clem's agenda; predictability, on the other hand, definitely is not. Unlike Louisa, who searches for "the One," Clem seems to chew up men and spit them out, leaving behind a trail of broken hearts as she roams around the world. And roam she does, as she takes on a series of research biologist positions in all corners of North America and beyond. Clem, whose personal life resembles a train wreck (or, literally, a maiming boating accident in the wake of a breakup), also has a tendency to get too emotionally involved in her professional work.
The two sisters frequently flirt with tragedy --- first with Clem's near-fatal boating accident, then with Louisa's serious health problems. In the end, though, tragedy strikes unexpectedly and devastatingly, leaving one sister to pick up the pieces of a life and decipher the meaning of a life-long sisterly relationship.
Julia Glass's talent is in distilling emotions and ideas into a carefully chosen image or a perfectly worded sentence. Those who are looking for a page-turning narrative would be better served elsewhere, since Glass's novels consist of quieter, subtler pleasures. At first, the narrative structure --- which eventually develops into the sisters narrating alternating chapters extending over the course of more than 20 years --- can seem disjointed, like a series of short stories. This strategy, however, permits the author to develop her characters gradually and carefully over the course of their evolving lives.
The most important character Glass develops is that of the sisterhood between Clem and Louisa, and this parallel narration serves as a perfect metaphor for the two sisters' relationship. Louisa observes that their bond is " like a double helix, two souls coiling around a common axis, joined yet never touching." Louisa and Clem rarely share the same page --- or the same physical space --- but, whether they readily admit it or not, they rely on each other to define themselves.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
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