Amazon.com
The premise of Vendela Vida's terrific debut novel, And Now You Can Go, seems at first a tad depressing, in a Bernard Goetz, New-York-in-the-1980s kind of way. The narrator, a young woman named Ellis, is walking in Riverside Park when she is held up at gunpoint. The man assures her he doesn't want her money, and he doesn't push her into the bushes to rape her. Ellis notices the designer name on his glasses: Giorgio Armani; she begins to obsess on this detail. Then she starts to recite poetry to him to cheer him up about life. The encounter ends as abruptly as it began, when the man simply runs away down the street. Even though no blood has been shed, Ellis's life is utterly changed.
In fast, clean, funny prose, we find Ellis slipping adrift from her routine as a Columbia grad student and falling into a series of mini-romances. When she goes home to San Francisco for winter break, her mom suggests Ellis join her on a medical mission to the Philippines. The work and the heat and the exhaustion settle her down for the first time since the attack, and she returns to New York a little refreshed. There's one more encounter with the gunman, which Vida plays more comic than tragic. In fact, the strength of this novel is in the way Vida toys with her priorities. The scenes that ought to be fraught and suspenseful have a goofy kind of oh-well voice to them; the scenes that ought to be dull--like Ellis's run-ins with her annoying roommate--exert a weirdly compelling narrative drive. Both the author and her protagonist charm us utterly. --Claire Dederer
From Publishers Weekly
Ellis, the 21-year-old narrator of Vida's lean, absorbing first novel, is forced at gunpoint to sit and talk with a man in a New York City park as he contemplates a murder/suicide. Like Scheherazade, she reels off half-remembered poems to try to distract the man and keep herself alive. Though nothing more happens on that park bench, she carries on as if treading water in an emotional whirlpool, waiting to get sucked under. A grad student at Columbia, Ellis goes through the various routines expected of the victim of violent crime: reporting the event to the campus police, seeking succor from friends, going to a therapist. But the problem of how to define herself-as a victim or not-lingers and begins to seep into other parts of her life. She ricochets among a handful of men: Tom, her well-meaning but needy boyfriend; the nameless "representative of the world," an enigmatic grad student; a rich, suicidal ex; and her only potential savior, a colorful, if chauvinistic, ROTC recruit full of chivalric gestures and inappropriate comments. Frustrated, Ellis returns to her home in San Francisco and then accompanies her mother on a charitable trip to the Philippines, where, in a series of surreal vignettes, she assists doctors giving eye surgery to the poor. While a more conventional novel would use this trip as a denouement-a kind of reconciliation with her own privilege-here it merely underscores the narrator's dreamlike detachment. Despite the high drama of the start, this is an unsentimental tale, in which the classic brush with death elicits a sense of awe as well as anger, and conventional notions of therapy and reconciliation are overturned. The end, unfortunately, arrives just as the book began-abruptly-and the reader longs for something more. Nevertheless, this remains an intriguing and auspicious debut.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Walking one afternoon in Riverside Park in New York City, 21-year-old Ellis is stopped by a young man with a gun, who wants to shoot himself and her. She tries to talk him out of it, quoting poetry in the process; he apologizes and goes away. The rest of the novel is about her recovery from the trauma, but there's also much more. Far from therapeutic healing, her sharp, fast-talking, first-person, present-tense vignettes are a hilarious take on the current twentysomething scene: the farce and the tenderness with boyfriends, girlfriends, family; the crazy obsession, betrayal, and danger everywhere; and also the loving intimacy. In her manic self-involvement, all her senses are superalert, especially smell; much of the fun is in the detail, especially the dialogue, as everyone tries to save her and blame her and tell her what to do and what they would have done. Steeped in her wild cynicism, she also finds the grace to reach beyond herself, and that surprising combination is what makes this first novel unforgettable. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"And Now You Can Go is a swift, fleet novel, a spare but polished miniature. . . . Vida writes with a sense of urgency, and with leapfrogging good humor." –The New York Times Book Review
"And Now You Can Go is so fast, so mesmerizing to read, and so accomplished that it's hard to think of it as a first novel, which it is–Vendela Vida has promise to spare." –Joan Didion
"Clever and dry and funny. . . . Vida has written a thriller: a thriller about how we love and how we forgive and when and how we have to choose to do so." –The New York Review of Books
“Astonishingly accomplished. . . . Vida creates the stunning impression that relationships are always provisional, even if the most random human interaction has the power to alter–or save–your life.” –Los Angeles Times
“It's a challenge to not fall in love with Vida's characters. . . . Equally humorous and heartbreaking . . . Vida has written an enormously giving and heartfelt exploration." –The Austin Chronicle
"Bewitching. . . . Vida demonstrates tremendous patience, sensitivity and droll humor as she charts the path traveled by her memorably odd hero." –Chicago Tribune
"Ellis charms us with her hyperventilated good intentions, foibles and screwups, her whole essence on the page so real and earnest and gullible, so neurotic, so capable we feel as if we have known her our whole lives." –The Miami Herald
“Vida’s gift lies in her assured grasp of the characters, as wacky as they may be, and in her ability to maintain a sense of humor.” –Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“A fearless, provocative and surprisingly funny story of implied violence and one woman’s skeptical pursuit of sanctuary. This observant, fast-paced and engrossing work heralds a writer of great talent.” –The San Diego Union-Tribune
"And Now You Can Go is utterly gripping, a book to be read in one sitting." –The Times Literary Supplement (London)
"Vendela Vida's first novel defies expectations in virtually every way; what looks to be a tale of psychological trauma, or even revenge, evolves into something much rarer in contemporary fiction: a joyful investigation of the pleasures of living. And Now You Can Go is beguiling, celebratory, and mysterious." –Jennifer Egan
"Subtle and psychologically acute . . . the stark, wry minimalism of Ellis' voice works in mesmerizing counterpoint to the lunatic situation that engulfs her." –Newsday
"Compulsively readable." –Vogue
“A captivating character study with surprising pockets of wit. . . . Vida has a brilliant eye for the idiosyncrasies and peculiar details that endear her characters to the reader.” –The Plain Dealer
“Wonderful. . . . In addition to its stirring plot and narrator, Vida’s novel offers solid gimmickless prose that shifts deftly according to scene.” –Minneapolis Star Tribune
"And Now You Can Go's narrator is a cool, quirky customer, but she's ever ready to do something generous, something noble, something stamped with grace." –David Schickler
“A quick, intriguing and often funny examination of trauma, human relationships and modern life.” –San Jose Mercury News
“An affecting examination of letting go.” –People
"To call Ellis a meticulous observer is, of course, just another way of praising Vida's skill. . . . Her writing is exceptionally detailed and vivid." –The Washington Post
"It is Ellis's fierce refusal to play the victim that drives this riveting book." –O, The Oprah Magazine
"An existential Perils of Pauline: A young woman is robbed–at gunpoint!–of her ability to feel. Whether or not she can learn anew how to love is the question at the heart of this wonderful new novel. Comedic yet serious, minimalist yet lush–this is an exciting debut." –Jonathan Ames
“Addictive. . . . Vida creates a complex but sympathetic heroine on a voyage and entices you to follow.” –The Boston Phoenix
"Vendela Vida has a talent for getting into the minds of her subjects. . . . Vida knows what people will do and what they won't do and what they find themselves doing anyway pretty damn well." –W magazine
"And Now You Can Go is consistently a pleasure to read." –The Independent (London)
"I was captivated from the first page, compelled to keep reading until I finished in the wee hours of the morning. Vendela Vida's novel is a gift to the reader, a story that contains what I love best about fiction: an idiosyncratic voice, keenly observed gestures, intelligence and heart, and both large and small moments that reverberate in unpredictable ways. And Now You Can Go doesn't let go. It is the debut of a writer with enormous talents." –Amy Tan
“Honest, quirky, and surprisingly compelling.” –Entertainment Weekly
"And Now You Can Go is a book for people who read for pleasure, a book whose beauty lies in its simplicity and sentences that push just enough." –San Francisco Guardian
Review
"And Now You Can Go is so fast, so mesmerizing to read, and so accomplished that it's hard to think of it as a first novel, which it is -- Vendela Vida has promise to spare."
--Joan Didion
"An existential Perils-of-Pauline: A young woman is robbed -- at gun point! -- of her ability to feel. Whether or not she can learn anew how to love is the question at the heart of this wonderful new novel. Comedic yet serious, minimalist yet lush -- this is an exciting debut."
-- Jonathan Ames author of The Extra Man
?I was captivated from the first page, compelled to keep reading until I finished in the wee hours of the morning. Vendela Vida?s novel is a gift to the reader, a story that contains what I love best about fiction: an idiosyncratic voice, keenly observed gestures, intelligence and heart, and both large and small moments that reverberate in unpredictable ways. And Now You Can Go doesn?t let go. It is the debut of a writer with enormous talents.? ?Amy Tan
?And Now You Can Go?s narrator is a cool, quirky customer, but she?s ever ready to do something generous, something noble, something stamped with grace.? ?David Schickler, author of Kissing in Manhattan
"Vendela Vida's first novel defies expectations in virtually every way; what looks be a tale of psychological trauma, or even revenge, evolves into something much rarer in contemporary fiction: a joyful investigation of the pleasures of living. And Now You Can Go is beguiling, celebratory, and faintly mysterious."
--Jennifer Egan
From the Hardcover edition.
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