Music plays a huge role in THEN, AGAIN, both setting the scene and serving as commentary to various goings-on in the life of Asha, THEN, AGAIN’s protagonist. Here are five important songs to the story:
“SexyBack,” by Justin Timberlake.
Asha and Charlie dance to this at their wedding, and it becomes the defacto song of their relationship. This is especially important during the Autumn chapters in the novel, those set in the present day, because they provide a peek into what Asha’s and Charlie’s marriage is like: playful, passionate, a little silly. The song’s meaning is something for Asha to cling to while she’s managing life with a comatose husband.
“Nobody Knows,” by Tony Rich Project.
Asha’s song with Jason is a huge contrast to “SexyBack.” Its themes of breaking up, missing an old love, and sadness at a dissolved relationship are underlined throughout Asha’s and Jason’s on-again-off-again situation. When the two are off-again, the lyrics make sense. When they’re on-again, “Nobody Knows” serves as a nod to youthful love that doesn’t have a clue what a healthy relationship actually looks like.
“2 Become 1,” by the Spice Girls.
Two of the Summer scenes—those set in Asha’s childhood—take place at a junior high dance in the 1990s in the Midwest. This song is indicative of everything about that setting, especially as it relates to girlfriends dancing their faces off in a sweaty gym with their arms draped around each other.
“Birthday Cake,” by Rihanna.
In the months after Charlie’s immediate coma, Asha is a wreck: She can’t get off the couch, can’t cook for herself, can’t bathe herself. During a moment when she comes up for air—she makes herself steak!—she rewrites some of the lyrics to “Birthday Cake,” humming her ridiculous song to herself as she cooks. It’s a tiny moment of levity in the midst of such pain and grief. It whispers to the reader, “Yes, Asha’s lost, but she’s in there still.”
“Again,” by Janet Jackson.
This song appears nowhere in THEN, AGAIN. However, it served as a huge inspiration in the early stages of writing. The novel literally borrows plot from the lyrics; the song opens, “I heard from a friend today, and she said you were in town. Suddenly the memories came back to me in my mind.”
A woman in the most challenging moment of her life faces impossible decisions in a poignant and deeply moving novel about love and loss, letting go, and moving on.
Asha’s husband, Charlie, isn’t dead, but he’s been gone just the same since the day his aneurysm trapped him in a coma. Everything that made him Charlie left this world a year ago for a limbo that has trapped Asha, too. She doesn’t want to stay in this situation, but she can’t bear to kiss the love of her life goodbye.
Luckily, she’s not alone. Asha has the support of her best friend, her father, and then, unexpectedly, Jason. Asha and Jason shared a tumultuous romance from junior high through her early college years, and he’s her first love. Now divorced, Jason wants to reconnect. For Asha, it feels weird. It feels wrong. But for now, it also feels kind of wonderful.
Exploring love—and its infinite variations—Then, Again, told through Asha’s eyes in the 1990s, 2000s, and today, deftly captures the choices made in the face of monumental loss and the power in memories of better things to carry us through impossible times.
Women's Fiction | Thriller Domestic | Romance [Lake Union Publishing, On Sale: November 12, 2024, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781662519901 / ]
Jaclyn Youhana Garver is an author, poet, and journalist. Her first novel, Then, Again, is available for pre-sale and will come out Nov. 12, 2024, from Lake Union Publishing. Jaclyn is represented by Savannah Brooks of kt literary agency.
In her contemporary fiction, Jaclyn explores the nuances of grief, love, family, and friendship. Her story “The Butterfly Catcher” appeared in From Beyond Press’s The World Belongs To Us: An Anthology of Horror Stories About Bugs in 2023. Her first poetry collection, the chapbook The Men I Never:, was published in 2023 from Chicago’s dancing girl press. She received an honorable mention in Writers Digest’s 90th Annual Writing Competition in 2021 in non-rhyming poetry for the piece “I Never Caught His Name”; and two in its 2022 competition, for “I Let the Mosquito Bite Me When I Held You” and “A Secret Letter for K.” She has been on the board of directors for the Midwest Writers Workshop since January 2023.
Jaclyn worked for daily newspapers for eight years and in community college marketing for five. Her current and previous freelance clients include Cincinnati Magazine, Lifehacker.com, Harper College, Orange Coast College, Visit Fort Wayne, and Graphics Output. She’s also the communication and DEI manager for the National Council for Marketing & Public Relations (NCMPR), the country’s premier professional organization for community college marketers. Her duties include producing Can You Make It Pretty?, NCMPR’s podcast; writing emails, blog posts, scripts and more; managing the organization’s three social media platforms; media relations; and helping plan NCMPR’s national conference for 300+ attendees.
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