Quick take
In this moving paean to storytelling, an old man regales his nursing assistant with tales that blur fact and fantasy.
Good to know
Emotional
Nonlinear timeline
Unreliable narrator
Underdog
Synopsis
Eugene “Geno” Miles is living out his final days in a nursing home, bored, curmudgeonly, and struggling to connect with his new nursing assistant, Angel, who is understandably skeptical of Geno’s insistence on having lived not just one life but many—all the way back to medieval Spain, where, as a petty thief, he first lucked upon true love only to lose it, and spend the next thousand years trying to recapture it.
Who is Geno? A lonely old man clinging to his delusions and rehearsing his fantasies, or a legitimate anomaly, a thousand-year-old man who continues to search for the love he lost so long ago?
As Angel comes to learn the truth about Geno, so, too, does the reader, and as his miraculous story comes to a head, so does the biggest truth of that love—timeless, often elusive—is sometimes right in front of us.
Content warning
This book contains mentions of child abuse.
Free sample
Get an early look from the first pages of Again and Again.
Why I love it
Shelby Van Pelt
Author, Remarkably Bright Creatures
When a book keeps me turning pages long after bedtime, I often ask myself why. Is there a delicious mystery demanding to be solved? A heart-pounding stretch of action and tension? Or is it simply a superbly told story granting me temporary residence in a world I don’t want to leave?
In the case of Jonathan Evison’s Again and Again: All of the above.
We don’t know who Geno Miles is. Geno Miles is a present-day centenarian who keeps his nursing-home staff on their toes with his curmudgeonly quirks while carrying deep wounds in his soul. Geno Miles is a street urchin who runs afoul of the powerful in medieval Spain, growing into his own bravery and risking everything for his one true love. Geno Miles is—and, honestly, this one is my favorite—Oscar Wilde’s cat, selectively spoiled in an apartment in Chelsea, believing his owner might be a reincarnated version of that one true love.
Centuries separate Geno from his love, but he still believes. It’s a fantastic story. Compelling enough to draw in Angel, a young man who works at the nursing home and forges an unlikely friendship with Geno. Compelling enough to keep me, as a reader, up until dawn, unable to put the book down.
Hope. That’s it, I think. We’ve got mystery and action and unforgettable characters but there is also an unbreakable thread of hope running through Again and Again. I can’t think of anything our world needs more right now.
Member ratings (5,370)
Janis G.
Waco, TX
This book is so well written. I found myself wanting to believe in Eugene’s stories. I love how all the ‘pieces’ fit together at the end. Read this book! It won’t disappoint!! Read in one setting.
Suzanne C.
Milford, MA
No matter the past lives for Eugene/Euric, it’s the readers choice how you see it. The most meaningful part of this book was the friendship between he and “Angel” his room cleaning, caregiver friend.
Charlie P.
Royal Oak, MI
Eugene Miles claims to have lived a thousand years. It’s in his last “incarnation” living in elder care, that the reclusive 92-year old opens up to his housekeeper. The rich relationship is indelible.
Lu A.
Duluth, GA
I think I immediately became enamored with the narrator that the truth didn’t even matter because you knew his character. It’s such a heart wrenching but also heart warming story about living for love
Leslie W.
West bend, WI
This work that will stand the test of time, most certainly as literary fiction. Beautifully written, worth reading more than once, it is going straight to my “favorites” shelf as a permanent addition