You Never Get It Back by Cara Blue Adams, 2021
The magic trick:
Turning a slow-moving, detailed narrative style in on itself with an explosive final scene
“You Never Get It Back” is one of the best stories of recent years, I feel confident in asserting.
It unspools slowly, our first-person narrator consistently interrupting her own narrative with backstory. Normally, I’d say this level of backstory and relationship explaining is too much. And to be clear it is a lot. But when every single sentence feels so precisely true, so incisive and relatable… well, it’s nothing but a net positive. These characters come to life for the reader, even as the narrative movement is slow.
But it’s more than that.
There is a twist on that magic. Or a next level.
The final plot development is presented in this similar style of mundane detail. Thing is that final plot development should be nothing close to “normal.” So couching it in this mundane style puts the story across for the reader in a way that is absolutely explosive.
And that’s quite a trick on Adams’s part.
The selection:
“How is UMass?” Esme asked.
Kate worked twenty hours a week in a lab on campus researching DNA. Or rather, as a technician in support of the postdocs and lead scientist who did the research. Her increased work-study hours and flagging grades had forced her to drop the chemistry major in her senior year, minoring instead, so after graduating with her physics degree, she’d sought research experience. It was an hour drive, and she shared the car with her mother, so she scheduled herself for the longest days possible. Her job was to help carry out crystallographic analysis by cleaning and prepping equipment, tedious but necessary tasks. She was saving for a deposit on an apartment and applying to full-time jobs in Boston and New York.
“You know – fine. The work is a little rote, but it’s going to be until I get an advanced degree. It’s good to be around these scientists and see how they got where they are and what they like and don’t like about the job.”
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