Jonah was dead once. He is a six-year-old boy living with his
grandfather and his mother, who tells him of the baby she put up
for adoption before he was born. Elizabeth, an elderly Doberman
trained by Jonah's grandfather to be a guard dog, also lives with
them. Lonely Jonah, ignored by his depressed mother, adores
Elizabeth. When he constantly plays with her, his grandfather says,
"Quit pestering that damned dog! I hope she bites you someday." And
then she does. Elizabeth bites off part of Jonah's ear. She savages
his face, scalp and chest. She kills Jonah. The paramedics
resuscitate him. The scars he bears forever symbolize internal
wounds caused by his upbringing.

Around the time of Jonah's death and resurrection, ten-year-old
Troy avoids his adopted parents' unhappy marriage by hanging out
with his drug-dealing cousin and his pot-smoking teenage customers.
Troy becomes a drug-dealer himself eventually, even after his wife
leaves him with custody of his much-loved son, Loomis.

A scene from an earlier period reveals Nora as a lonely girl in a
bleak unwed mothers' home: "It is not quite a prison, not quite a
hospital." She does not want the baby --- at first. Her feelings
reluctantly change, but it's too late. By the time she voices her
wish to keep her son, he's been taken to his adoptive
parents.

Moving back to the past and forward into the present, the reader
learns the story of Jonah, Troy and Nora --- two boys and their
mother. The stories give the reader the emotional underpinnings
necessary to empathize with each character, and are brilliantly
dovetailed together into one big meaty tale. Author Dan Chaon also
pays loving tribute to Midwest prairie and small towns, making the
setting a vital element to the story.

Each character is disconnected and yearns for someone. Nora has
never recovered from the loss of her first son. That sorrow has
twisted Nora's personality until she is mostly unable to give love
to her second boy. Jonah obsesses about his older brother, the baby
his mother gave up for adoption. He wonders about the hand he's
been dealt. Who is better off --- the brother whose life was mauled
by his despondent mother, or the one who escaped via
adoption?

Jonah's longing to connect with his half-brother leads him to
search for Troy. When Jonah finds him, Troy is in agony. After
being arrested for dealing drugs, his son Loomis is in the custody
of his grandmother, who won't allow Jonah to visit or speak with
him. Troy is so painfully distracted by missing Loomis that he
can't quite focus when Jonah approaches him as his brother.
Inevitably, Jonah decides to act, hoping his drastic feat will
somehow give him the family he's craving.

I highly recommend YOU REMIND ME OF ME as a gripping, good read.
The plot is moving, and the prose is elegantly subtle.
Occasionally, I was stunned by a beautifully wrought sentence,
rereading it in admiration. Usually, though, I was simply and
happily lost --- spellbound by a master storyteller.