Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

A Novel

Peter Cameron

Picador

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Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the story of James Sveck, a sophisticated, vulnerable young man with a deep appreciation for the world and no idea how to live in it. James is eighteen, the child of divorced parents living in Manhattan. Articulate, sensitive, and cynical, he rejects all of the assumptions that govern the adult world around him--including the expectation that he will go to college in the fall. he would prefer to move to an old house in a small town somewhere in the Midwest. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You takes place over a few broiling days in the summer of 2003 as James confides in his sympathetic grandmother, stymies his canny therapist, deplores his pretentious sister, and devises a fake online identity in order to pursue his crush on a much older coworker. Nothing turns out how he'd expected.

"Possibly one of the all-time great New York books, not to mention an archly comic gem" (Peter Gadol, LA Weekly), Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the insightful, powerfully moving story of a young man questioning his times, his family, his world, and himself.

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Peter Cameron on his book Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You--Author Interview

Listen to author Peter Cameron talk about his young adult novel Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. In this author interview, Cameron talks about his character James and how he came to write this coming of age novel.

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Reviews

Praise for Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

"His best work--it's terrific, piercing, and funny. The novel demonstrates every kind of strength."--David Lipsky, The New York Times Book Review

"James Sveck is a brilliant wit of a character whose voice will echo long after his story ends."--Kristin Kloberdanz, Chicago Tribune



"Deliciously vital right from the start . . . a piece of vocal virtuosity and possibly Cameron's best book . . . It is a bravura performance, and Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is a stunning little book. "--Lorrie Moore, The New York Review of Books

 

"Cameron's prose handily marries the tangled logic of adolescence to simple, beautiful language."--Peter Terzian, Newsday

"Beautifully conceived and written . . . funny, sad, tender, and sophisticated."--Michael Cart, Booklist

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About the Author

Peter Cameron

PETER CAMERON is the author of several novels, including Andorra and The Weekend. He lives in New York City.

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Peter Cameron

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Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
A Novel
Peter Cameron
Award

American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table of the American Library Association Award, Amazon.com Top 10 Editor’s Picks: Teens, Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, Books for the Teen Age, New York Public Library, CCBC Choice (Univ. of WI), Ferro-Grumley Award, Horn Book Magazine Fanfare List, Kirkus Reviews Editor's Choice, Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books of the Year, Capitol Choices Noteworthy Titles for Children and Teens, Michigan Great Lakes Great Books Award Master List

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
Picador
April 2009
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780312428167
ISBN10: 0312428162
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 240 pages
Age Range: 14 and up
Grade Range: 9 and up
$14.00
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Hardcover

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Hardcover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Frances Foster Books
September 2007
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780374309893
ISBN10: 0374309892
Young Adult Fiction
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 240 pages
Age Range: 14 and up
Grade Range: 9 and up
$16.00

e-Book Agency

Learn more about this edition
e-Book Agency
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Frances Foster Books
April 2009
e-Book Agency
ISBN: 9781429927130
ISBN10: 1429927135
Young Adult Fiction240 pages
Age Range: 14 and up
Grade Range: 9 and up
$9.99
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