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    Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
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    Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
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    Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
    Audiobook7 hours

    Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

    Written by Peter Cameron

    Narrated by Lincoln Hoppe

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    IN RE: James Sveck-eighteen-year-old New Yorker, charming, precocious, confused, doesn't quite fit in (doesn't really want to),
    If: his future (i.e., college) seems completely meaningless, not to mention terrifying . . .  
    Then: he'll start anew (move to the Midwest?).
    In re: James Sveck-misunderstood by a capricious mother, a self-absorbed father, a mordant older sister,
    Et alia: his Teutonic therapist, his D-list celebrity grandmother, his unnervingly attractive art gallery colleague . . .
    If: What one wants is enigmatic . . .
    Then: Life can be hell.
    But: as the summer gets hotter, James comes to recognize the wrenching truth of his emotions.

    James's archly comic bravado fuels this sharply observed novel of a teen adrift in an adult world, struggling to make sense of the problems of love and of lack. The engaging voice of our idiosyncratic antihero is deftly captured by the adroit prose of Peter Cameron. Often hilarious, deeply compassionate, smart, and lyrical, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is every bit as sui generis as James Sveck himself.

    See also: Brown University; Sexual orientation (confusion thereof); Dinner theater; Poodles (standard).


    From the Compact Disc edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateNov 4, 2008
    ISBN9780739372524
    Unavailable
    Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
    Author

    Peter Cameron

    Peter Cameron is the author of Andorra, The City of Your Final Destination, and Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Grand Street, and The Paris Review. He lives in New York City.

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    Reviews for Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

    3.5/5

    356 ratings34 reviews

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    • 4/5
      "An archly comic gem"By sally tarbox on 30 May 2017Format: PaperbackNarrated by sensitive and intelligent eighteen-year old James Sveck, this was quite a compelling read. His art-dealer mother has just remarried; his father won't hear of his not going to college - but James yearns to buy himself a house in the Midwest and keep away from his peer group. Meantime he works in his mother's gallery, falls for a co-worker and starts seeing a therapist. Both sad and funny, this is a little gem - a 21st century Catcher in the Rye.
    • 4/5
      James lives in New York City. His parents are divorced, and he lives with his mother and older sister. His only friends are his grandmother and the man who runs his mother's art gallery. His dysfunctinal family and uncertainty about the future combine with his loneliness to cause problems.
    • 3/5
      Narrated by Lincoln Hoppe. Hoo, what a downer of a book. It got all these rave reviews in the trades but I just couldn't identify with James' offputting loneliness. I was also dismayed to hear Mr. Hoppe's voice; I had so identified it with "Marcelo and the Real World." Actually it ended up being right for the depressed James. The therapy sessions were as tiring for me as for James. Highlights included James' relationship with his grandmother and his awful prank on John which helped take his superior loner self down a peg.
    • 4/5
      Struck this reader as a better Catcher/Holden Caulfield than Salinger's Catcher/Holden for current generations. (Karen)
    • 3/5
      The writing is very competent, but the story just never comes together. I get that this may be the author's intent, and if so then it works. As a reader, though, I expected more of a pay off for having to deal with a fairly abrasive character. The novel seems more to just stop than end. The high point, though, is that this is one of the few novels I've read that contains interaction between therapist and patient that rings true.
    • 4/5
      James lives in New York City. His parents are divorced, and he lives with his mother and older sister. His only friends are his grandmother and the man who runs his mother's art gallery. His dysfunctinal family and uncertainty about the future combine with his loneliness to cause problems.
    • 5/5
      When eighteen year old James Sveck announces that he will most likely be forgoing his upcoming entrance to Brown University to instead pursue a piece of land not yet purchased in the Midwest, his well heeled New York City family protests. His flighty, thrice married, thrice divorced mother is only interested to the point of insisting that he subscribe to the services of the family shrink. His Partner’s Club dinning father, voices repeatedly that he will be throwing his life away by shirking his academic responsibility. His older sister, halfway through Barnard and dating a married man, lectures him on his stupidity. His therapist, recommended by his mother, simply parrots the wishes of his family. His only solace is found in his feisty grandmother and an older coworker at his mother’s gallery.Peter Cameron’s Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is an elegantly crafted tribute to the ever-growing stack of quarter-life crisis accounts in American literature. While the theme is not new (the book has received some serious flack for drawing on the likes of Catcher In the Rye), it is far from a mundane, rehashed storyline. Written from a teen view but not necessarily the voice of teen aged America (in fact, James will tell you that his position is exactly the opposite) the book superbly articulates the fluidity and uncertainty affixed to coming of age.I found myself cringing when I read other reviewers’ descriptions of James’s deep queries as “too adult”. I find that young adults are often far more elegant in their searching than we give them credit for, perhaps because of, not in spite of, their youth. As we age, much like the secondary adults in Cameron’s tale, we lose the ability to question, to act out, to rise above or sidestep authority.While it is billed as a young adult novel, the story touches on points that are relevant throughout life making it accessible and agreeable to a wide reading audience. If more young adult literature followed Cameron’s lead, I think I would find myself a bigger fan of the genre. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You may be small in size but its impact is nothing less than powerful and is one that should, without a doubt, make its way to your summer reading pile.
    • 2/5
      I didn't believe for a second that an 18 year old, even a haughty rich white 18 year old New Yorker Stuyvesant grad, would sound like this narrator. The narrator sounds like a snarky GWM in his 50s, who ridicules such imaginative new targets as gallerists, therapists, professors, and businessmen. Risky! Okay, maybe this could sound like someone who just graduated from Stuyvesant. Read that Andre Aciman book instead, if you want to read about educated rich gay boys.
    • 2/5
      This was a beautifully written book with a main character I found to be entirely annoying. The angst is simply overwhelming and more pointless than usual. James is well-off and whiny and wearying to my ear. I didn't much care if he ended up going to the Ivy League school of his parents choice or not. The narrator was a little flat, too. It failed to work for me.
    • 3/5
      I read this book a while ago, so I don't remember enough to give a really detailed review. But the book really sucked me in. It wasn't a comfortable read by any means, James has too many issues for it to be that, but even so, when it ended I was really sad to leave him

      ETA. There's a movie version in the works for 2011 starring Toby Regbo as James. Exciting!
    • 5/5
      This book took me by surprise. I wasn't really sure what it was going to bring but I was very surprised. It's a small novel and it's not developed like longer books are, but every page, every word blew my breath away. It was very very real. I could see myself in these pages. James and I are not identical but we share a lot in common and being able to read his story was something I had never thought possible. How does an author capture all the impossible thoughts, the inner struggles? Cameron does this very well; perhaps by calling it as it is and not over analyzing it. I'm not sure entirely, but however he does it, it is a great success. I am so glad I found this book. It makes me feel as if I'm not so alone with how I feel some days. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      James Sveck, eighteen years old, lives in New York City. He lives with his several times divorced mother and his older sister , he sees his father every Friday for lunch, but of choice enjoys visiting his one time actress grandmother. He is bright, articulate, a thinker, and a loner; he finds peers insufferable and prefers the company of is elders, and maybe he has a crush on John, the manager of his mother's art gallery.James story covers the period leading up to his possible entry into college, something he decides he does not want to do, he would prefer his father spent the money on a down payment on the old and remote house of his dreams. It is an affecting and captivating story told by an interesting and endearing young man; and for anyone who is happy in their own company a story that will strike more than a few chords.
    • 5/5
      Here's a quick story about how one comes across a new author. Several months ago, I was trying to track down some gay YA books, and I ran across this book. Somehow, despite my intentions, the description of this book as really only qualifying as a YA novel because its protagonist is a teenager got my attention. Despite the fact that I started the search looking specifically for YA stuff, I ended up with this book on the strength of those reviews that it wasn't really meant for that audience. Curious, right? I think, though, that the book works both ways, and could probably be appreciated by anyone from their teens right on up.So yes, we do have our teenaged protagonist, James Sveck, a high-schooler getting ready to apply for university, but feeling ambivalent about the prospect. He lives in New York, some number of years after September 11, but finds himself intrigued by breaking out of the regular molds, and perhaps just going and buying up a house in the Midwest, cheap and easy, and live out there. The story, then, follows him finding himself and where he wants to go in his life.That's all easy to say, but the cast of characters here is really winning, even beyond James. The book is slim, and you get the story from James's point of view, but you still get a good sense of the reality of the other people in his world: his older sister, at university already and dating an affable professor; his divorcee mother, an art gallery owner who is getting married to her new beau; his father, the sort of executive that thinks ordering steak is definitely the manly thing to do; John Webster, the black gay gallery manager that helps run his mother's gallery. They all feel real, and motivated by their own desires and thoughts, even through James's filter, which is pretty remarkable for the space.But the stars of this piece are James, a really fully realized, conflicted teenager, and the dialogue. Oh my, the dialogue. I love it to bits. The book flies by quickly, because you just get lost in the talking. James in particular is that kind of sharp, smart, vulnerable teenager who pokes holes in things with his words, and Cameron nails it.I wanted to hold off saying it until I checked my list, and I have read a good number of good books this year, but I think this was probably my favorite. Not necessarily the best, but my favorite. I would recommend it most highly.
    • 4/5
      Written by Peter Cameron this is a slice of life story of a few days in time with an 18 year old boy who is troubled with the transition of living in society as we know it. Living in New York City with a high powered attorney for a father and a fashion diva for a mother who also dabbles in owning an art gallery James struggles with who he is and how he can function in a normal environment. He has always been a little different and as some have told him might be to smart for his own good. How often have we used that saying to describe somebody who is beyond his/her years and that knowledge gets them into trouble.The book moves slowly along as James is depicted as a troubled teen that had been prematurely exposed to adulthood and how he handles his troubled life. Much of the story is told through his interaction with his therapist as he describes episodes of his life focusing a substantial amount of time to a trip to Washington DC as he was chosen by the American Classroom to take an honored trip. He depicts his life as he works his way to understanding how to communicate with anyone and everyone preferring for the most part just not to speak in general.Since he is so intelligent he almost comes across as elitist and condescending to everyone he meets as he talks down to the common person who cannot possibly understand him for who he is. The book itself is very well written and the story is eloquent but to me personally seems self indulgent in the depiction of who this character might become. It rambles through the process of describing James and his issues from acknowledging his sexuality to his unhealthy family life.If you are into psychological overtures and how a person at a young age might come to deal with adult decisions in a methodically depicted story then this will be a good book for you. I didn’t dislike it but it was not a free flowing easy read either. I can’t be too negative since the book is so well written and you definitely connect with the character but in the end even with this bonding you are left with asking yourself why you took the time to read through the entire thing.I hope to read more of Peter Cameron but would also hope that in his next novel he might weave a story that is more directional with something slightly more specific in mind for an outcome. The ending seemed abrupt and contrived with no real transition from the story to the finality of the conclusion.
    • 5/5
      It’s summertime and James Sveck is all set to go to Brown in the fall. The only problem is that James doesn’t want to go to college. He doesn’t like college students. In fact, he really doesn’t like much of anyone.His family isn’t much help. His father consents to eating a token lunch with him now and then, but they haven’t much to talk about. His mother has returned abruptly, prematurely, from her honeymoon, distraught, talking of divorce. His sister is acrimonious toward him and spends her time engaging in an affair with a married man.James finds little in the world to love. He disparages the dog park; his job at this mother’s art gallery; the sole artist who exhibits at the gallery, a man who creates garbage can art; the seminar on American government he was chosen to participate in, which ended in fiasco; his co-worker; even his therapist. James seems horribly ill-at-ease in the world.The story is just a charmingly told harangue of life by a brilliant teenage misfit who continues to bumble through life, angering and alienating everyone he meets. Only his grandmother knows what to say to him, sharing her wisdom with him, a wisdom that seems to help him move on, to keep stumbling through the pain of life.The problems James faces are not resolved by the end of the book, but James has acquired a perspective that this too shall pass. Somehow James manages to go away to college. Hope is seen when James keeps the houseful of possessions his grandmother leaves to him, not sure what he might need in the future.
    • 5/5
      A gripping look at a disaffected boy in his pre-college summer in New York. NYC references and arch, arty environment (James works in his mother's gallery) may put some readers off. Those who perservere will be rewarded with a funny, poignant look at a young man overcoming depression to reach out. Nice bonus: a warmly realized relationship with his grandmother.
    • 4/5
      Read this in one sitting. I don't usually read YA but it was getting good crossover reviews too. I liked his voice. It was clever and polished, but in that way that things you write in your own head on the way home are. In the way they never are once you actually write them down and you wonder what happened. I could relate to his social awkwardness too, except that I was that way at 12, not at 18. There were a few bits that made me wish for post-its, to make note of the neat wording (but it was cold and I was snuggled in bed) and a few bits that made me chuckle. I have a 15 year old cousin; maybe I'll send her a copy and get that perspective.
    • 4/5
      He's smart, witty, gay & unable to connect with the world. James's family is SO dysfunctional...almost a stereotype. James is hard to figure out and in the long run, I didn't care about him very much. The adult in me just wanted to tell him to "grow up".
    • 3/5
      Firstly, I read this book in one evening. Which should not suggest that it's facile, but rather that it's engaging. This book was a pleasure to read! There's more I could and should say, but I won't. This book is for people who are interested in the interior.
    • 5/5
      When eighteen year old James Sveck announces that he will most likely be forgoing his upcoming entrance to Brown University to instead pursue a piece of land not yet purchased in the Midwest, his well heeled New York City family protests. His flighty, thrice married, thrice divorced mother is only interested to the point of insisting that he subscribe to the services of the family shrink. His Partner’s Club dinning father, voices repeatedly that he will be throwing his life away by shirking his academic responsibility. His older sister, halfway through Barnard and dating a married man, lectures him on his stupidity. His therapist, recommended by his mother, simply parrots the wishes of his family. His only solace is found in his feisty grandmother and an older coworker at his mother’s gallery.Peter Cameron’s Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is an elegantly crafted tribute to the ever-growing stack of quarter-life crisis accounts in American literature. While the theme is not new (the book has received some serious flack for drawing on the likes of Catcher In the Rye), it is far from a mundane, rehashed storyline. Written from a teen view but not necessarily the voice of teen aged America (in fact, James will tell you that his position is exactly the opposite) the book superbly articulates the fluidity and uncertainty affixed to coming of age.I found myself cringing when I read other reviewers’ descriptions of James’s deep queries as “too adult”. I find that young adults are often far more elegant in their searching than we give them credit for, perhaps because of, not in spite of, their youth. As we age, much like the secondary adults in Cameron’s tale, we lose the ability to question, to act out, to rise above or sidestep authority.While it is billed as a young adult novel, the story touches on points that are relevant throughout life making it accessible and agreeable to a wide reading audience. If more young adult literature followed Cameron’s lead, I think I would find myself a bigger fan of the genre. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You may be small in size but its impact is nothing less than powerful and is one that should, without a doubt, make its way to your summer reading pile.
    • 2/5
      I listened to the audiobook version of this, and it never captured my attention. James just annoyed me, and I felt it hard to feel for him. While very little happened in the story, the ending felt rushed and pat, as if the author also got a little bored.
    • 3/5
      This is a funny, witty, painful book about growing up and becoming an adult, and how those things aren't always what they are cracked up to be. James is spending the summer before his freshman year of college at Brown deciding not to go to college because he doesn't like people his age, among other things. His divorced, wealthy parents give him little guidance other than what serves themselves. He works at his mother's art gallery which rarely has any customers, giving him way too much time to navelgaze. This book has a lot of interesting characters and thoughtful observations. Unfortunately, its cerebral humor and plot are not going to appeal to the majority of teen readers. James is gay, but spends a lot of time in the book ducking the question, which might either reassure or alienate gay readers.
    • 5/5
      I bought this book for the interesting title. I didn't think I liked the book at first. By the end I didn't want to leave the 18 year old main character, James. Throughout the book we peer in to James' messy, confused and angst ridden life. Why doesn't someone just step in and help him? Of course, no one can really help a teenager get through this time in life. It's part of becoming the adult of your future.
    • 5/5
      Cameron's book is truly a fantastic book. Not only is the story well done, but the writing is brilliant. Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You is the story of James, an 18 year old boy trying to figure out, well, life. He's not sure he wants to go to college, he's not really sure about much of anything, except that he wants to be alone and he hates people his own age. Cameron handles everything perfectly -- the several time married mother, the distant and yet controlling father, the implied crush on the older coworker, and the love that James is seeking without really knowing it. I say perfectly because he manages to capture how our lives (the lives of the family, of teenagers, of college students, of everyone) are not perfect at all. James' view is one that anyone can relate too, not just teens. This isn't just because he's such a universal character in many ways, it's also because Cameron proves to be a sublime writer. James is smarter than many people (perhaps smarter than we are) and while in many books (YA or otherwise) this would be a turn off, it's the opposite. James doesn't lord it over his readers, just the people he encounters. And often, it's not even on purpose. While this book isn't about me, reading it I felt it had been written for me. It's an incredibly emotional (and emotionally driven) story about what it's like to grow up when you're already halfway there.
    • 3/5
      I did not like Catcher in the Rye. Not the first time I read it (in high school) and not the second time (in my 20s). And this book is little more than Catcher in the Rye updated for the 21st century. Except they still use words like "faggy".James, which at least is a better name than Holden, has not been kicked out of school, but has just graduated from high school and is considering not going to college, although he's scheduled to begin at Brown in the fall. Aside from a somewhat meaningless job, he spends his time being introspective and disaffected, and seems determined to remain so. He does strange, antisocial things for no apparent reason and with no apparent thought of the consequences and then not quite understanding why people are upset about what he did.I can't quite put my finger on why I has a problem with this book, or why I don't like Catcher in the Rye. I guess characters who know they're acting in an asocial way and refuse to acknowledge why other people might think they're a little strange just bother me. It's fine to be asocial, but a character (at least an intelligent character, as both James and Holden are supposed to be), ought to have enough insight to understand that they're outside the norm, which is going to be troubling to some people.
    • 3/5
      I'm not sure what to think of this book. The main character was funny at times and certainly interesting. He reminded me a great deal of my husband. The book however didn't seem to have a plot. It's more of a really long character sketch than a novel. Parts got very boring and tedious; especially the meetings with the psychiatrist. I don't think I'd recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      This book caught me eye during a YALSA program during the ALA Midwinter 2008 in Philadelphia. Mainly because the cover and description were somewhat vague as to the struggles of the main character. Wondering if maybe it was a young adult GLBT title (which I've never really read before) I was intrigued. The title did not disappoint. Other than having somewhat crappy names for the characters (I'm speaking of the sister's Professor boyfriend, who really shouldn't have been in the book at all), I really liked this book. It takes place in New York, and makes the probably mandatory 9/11 reference that all books being written at the time have to. Honestly, that doesn't go so much with the story. It's been compared to 'Catcher in the Rye.' James isn't Holden; he's way gayer, and that made it entertaining to read. When he talked about being on the bus and feeling so alone... I was that kid. This book is a good read for those of all ages, but obviously it's intended audience... GLBT young adults, are going to identify with something within these pages.
    • 5/5
      I have enjoyed many of this author's books but this was simply his best. This character, along with his grandmother, are so adorable and so appealing (despite Jame's embarrassing faux pas). Don't miss this book.
    • 4/5
      Really liked this book. Teenage male protagonist struggling with life in Manhattan.
    • 5/5
      the label as the "catcher in the rye" for generation X & Y is very apt. this book is crawling into my soul as we speak. i think i'm gonna have to buy this one for my shelf.