Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron

Miro - the family dog black standard poodle James feels the family talks more often to the dog than each other (15).John Webster - works for James's mother at the art gallery (10) grew up in Georgia went to Harvard (23).Barry Rogers - the man whom James's mother marries but she returns from the honeymoon in Las Vegas without him after he steals her credit card to use for gambling.Rainer Maria Schultz - language theory professor at Barnard College.Marjorie Dunfour - James' mother owns gallery and is divorced from Paul Sveck (169).Paul Sveck - James father questions James about his sexuality.Gillian Sveck - James's older sister going into her fourth year at Barnard College dating Rainer Maria Schultz.James Sveck - 18 years old lives with his mother emotionally close to his grandmother.The reader learns about James’ present as he tells the events of his days, but the reader learns about his past when James reflects on his therapy sessions.

Cameron's use of first person narration allows for the reader to create an intimate relationship with James as he works through his life and through the therapy sessions to which his parents have made him go. The only person in his life with whom he is able to successfully relate is his grandmother otherwise, James prefers solitude. James Sveck, 18, is an isolated young adult caught in the summer before he is to begin college at Brown University. James Sveck, the protagonist, tells the reader about his life, including the reasons he became a 'Missing Misfit' and is seeing a psychiatrist. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is a young adult novel by Peter Cameron.

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron