"Not since The Catcher in the Rye has a novel captured the deep and almost physical ache of adolescent existential sadness as trenchantly as the perfectly titled Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. You don’t have to be eighteen to relate to James Dunfour Sveck and his sense of alienation from a world he doesn’t understand, nor to be profoundly moved by his story. Told with compassion, insight, humor, and hope, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You deserves to be read by readers of all ages for years to come. I would have loved it as a teenager, and I love it now." —James Howe, author of The Misfits
"As I drew near the end of Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, I read more and more slowly because I didn’t want to leave James. With his devotion to precise English, his dislike of most other people—especially those his own age—and his adoration of his grandmother and old houses, James is the ideal antihero and companion. And, most important of all, he never utters a dull sentence. This is a riveting, suspenseful, witty, and very funny novel."
—Margot Livesey, author of Banishing Verona
"Peter Cameron is one of my favorite writers, and this is one of his best books, a shrewd, funny, and at times painful story about the difficulty of becoming an adult. James is a wonderful narrator—brilliant and witty, remarkably observant, and just a little infuriating. His voice is so irresistible you’ll hate to put the book down."
—Stephen McCauley, author of Alternatives to Sex
"The effect that comes from reading this comedic and beautiful novel is one that I particularly love and only happens with certain books—this feeling that you madly adore the narrator, that you’ve made this new intimate friend, and that for a little while (the duration of the book, at least) you’re a little bit less alone in the world."
—Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir! and The Extra Man
"Cameron's meticulously voiced novel begins as a comedy of manners, wittily disarticulating a certain class of New Yorker, so it takes the reader awhile to catch onto the fact that it's actually a story about the psychological pain that comes from loneliness and the difficulty in making emotional connections. The virtuoso first-person narrative is related by the protagonist, James Sveck, an 18-year-old boy who is as smart as he is alienated . . . Cameron's power is his ability to distill a particular world and social experience with great specificity while still allowing the reader to access the deep well of our shared humanity. "
—Starred, Kirkus Reviews
“A critically acclaimed author of adult fiction, Cameron makes a singularly auspicious entry into the world of YA with this beautifully conceived and written coming of age novel that is, at turns, funny, sad, tender, and sophisticated.”—Starred, Booklist
"While he's supposed to be preparing for his freshman year at Brown, James Sveck is secretly lusting after a man employed at his mother's gallery in Peter Cameron's compassionate, funny, and painful novel, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You."— Out Magazine
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Someday This Pain Will Be
Useful to You
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