You might not think a book about a woman whose husband is in a coma will make you laugh out loud, again and again—but that’s only because you haven’t yet read Jaclyn Youhana Garver’s witty and heartfelt debut novel, Then, Again.
Following Asha as she copes with her husband Charlie’s interminable medical diagnosis, the book deftly moves between three periods of Asha’s life from the 1990s to the present day, where she reunites with her tumultuous first love, Jason—who unexpectedly becomes an essential part of her support system. At first it feels weird and possibly wrong, but as Asha navigates the complexities of moving on, she also finds hope and the possibility of happiness (again).
Youhana Garver’s sense of humor shines throughout this novel, and Asha’s journey is incredibly relatable to anyone who remembers their messy, beautiful first love. It is also a refreshingly honest, sex-positive take on young women’s desires without shame or judgment.
Youhana Garver will discuss Then, Again in appearances at The Pile Bookstore in Berwyn, IL, on Saturday, December 7, at 2 p.m. in conversation with Jeff Julian, and at The Book Cellar in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood on Thursday, January 16, at 7 p.m. in conversation with Kathleen Rooney.
Although Youhana Garver grew up near Chicago, I first met her halfway around the world at the Himalayan Writing Retreat in India. I was thrilled to reconnect with her to discuss Then, Again.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch
You include a triptych of epigraphs at the beginning of the novel that move from one season to another. I’m curious why you chose these specific quotes, and how they set up the themes of your book.
Jaclyn Youhana Garver
I love books with epigraphs. Part of it is for the structure of the book. I had three very clear timelines, and one of the early things I worked on is how to make clear when the reader is in each time period. An early option was “Then,” “Again,” and “After,” which I love, but that could be confusing. So I thought, what about seasons of a life? These are so clearly spring, summer, and autumn. This is a logical epigraph to have, because I also wanted it to be clear that the summer chapters don’t necessarily happen in summertime. It’s the summer of your life. The autumn chapters don’t necessarily happen in autumn, it’s the autumn of this relationship.
Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch
I felt that while reading Then, Again. Speaking of timelines, you weave together three periods of Asha’s life: her childhood and first love in the late ’90s, courtship with her husband in the early ’00s, and the present of the novel in 2017. Did you always plan to structure it jumping back and forth through time in this way, and why do you think this serves the novel so well?
Jaclyn Youhana Garver
I one hundred percent had to jump around in the first draft. I wrote it in like three months. That will never happen again! This poured out and it came out jumbled. I think it works because so much of what Asha is doing when she’s reminiscing is comparing Charlie to Jason, which she doesn’t want to do—no one wants to compare their current amazing love with the former tumultuous love, but you can’t help but make those comparisons when you’re falling in love with your eventual spouse. There are so many firsts in a relationship. Many relationships have a first “I love you.” Many relationships have a first time you’re intimate with one another, have meeting your parents. And when you’re experiencing this—when you’re a teenager versus when you’re an adult and ready for the heft and meaning of that—it’s hard. I wanted to compare and contrast those moments.
Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch
It’s a very relatable experience. Where did you get the initial idea for this novel? Although you wrote the first draft so quickly, given the somewhat serious subject matter with Charlie’s coma, I imagine it required something from you emotionally to tell this story. Had you been thinking about this for a while already and how did that storyline develop?
Jaclyn Youhana Garver
I did not have Asha’s experiences, but it was fun to sometimes feel like I was living vicariously through Asha and wishing I was as brave as her, and wishing I was as gutsy as her in her youth. I had a super tumultuous first love, and it’s so big and so crazy when you’re in it. And it’s also so poetic, and it feels so story-heavy. I thought, okay, what if there’s a character who gets a chance to reconnect with a first love later in life. What would that look like? And so I knew that was going to happen, I wanted this to be a difficult decision for Asha [when she reconnects with Jason during Charlie’s coma]. I don’t think Asha is in the wrong, and that was important to me. There could have been versions of this book where she is deceptive or devious, and that’s not who this character is. I didn’t want to write cheating or “I made the wrong choice.” I wanted to write about what happens when there are multiple people who are good for you. I did not know the end of the book when I started writing it. Is it Stephen King who says you only need to see as far as your headlights? This book, I was just looking at the headlights. And it worked for this particular story.
Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch
Did the resolution of the book surprise you at all, when you finally had the ending in your headlights, so to speak?
Jaclyn Youhana Garver
By the time I got to the end of it, I realized, this isn’t about Asha’s loves. This is about Asha’s growth. That was a huge “Aha!” moment for me. I feel like this character just pulled the story away from me and said, “What you want to tell isn’t the point. This is the point.”
Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch
I thought you expertly handled how Asha deals with Charlie’s extended medical crisis, jumping between these heart-wrenching, very sad moments alongside the sharp wit and humor of Asha’s perspective. To me that is what gets the reader through, moments of genuine laugh-out-loud humor. How did you create Asha’s unique way of seeing the world, and what role do you think humor plays in a story like this?
Jaclyn Youhana Garver
Asha is half Assyrian and her father is from Iran. I am half Assyrian, my father is from Iran, but that is where our similarities stop. And that was important to me. It was important to me that she be a confident woman, that she have a support system to make choices that maybe in another realm could have been problematic, but weren’t for her. I think life is funny, and I think sometimes dark things are funny. I have a gallows sense of humor. You know, there’s always someone at the funeral who’s laughing, because that’s how you deal with awful things. It was also important for me for this to be a novel of hope and moving on. I think in order to achieve that, Asha has to have a little bit of a sunny disposition. We eventually see Asha in the moments right after Charlie’s coma, and then we see her about a year later. I didn’t want to show her in that year—the point wasn’t the wallowing, the misery, the depths of her grief. I wanted to meet her again on the other side of that, when she’s poking her head out like, “I’m young. My life’s not over. What now?” To me that “what now” is a hopeful question.
Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch
I was left with a very hopeful feeling at the end of the novel. Speaking of things that are funny, there is a hilarious and honest take on the development of young women’s sexuality in this book, which I loved. There was a particularly memorable moment where a squiggly pen is mentioned and I LOLed. What were you thinking about, in terms of how you portray young women discovering their sexuality? This seemed like a theme in the novel that was very prominent and refreshing.
Jaclyn Youhana Garver
Thank you, that was super important to me. I set out to write a feminist book. I wanted it to be sex positive. There is no slut-shaming Asha in this. I grew up on Judy Blume. I have read Forever a dozen times, and I love it, actually I have Asha reading it at a point in my book, too. It’s about a 17-year-old woman, Catherine, and her first relationship and her first sexual relationship. She does not get pregnant or AIDS. She gets orgasms. And her grandma introduces her to Planned Parenthood. It’s amazing. For my novel, I wanted to “Judy Blume” it. For some reason, we see teenage boys being sexual or being dirty or talking to each other about sex, but it’s still uncommon to see teenage girls doing that. And they do, and I wanted to acknowledge that.
Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch
One thing that also struck me is how supportive Asha’s father is throughout the book, trusting her to make decisions for herself even as a teenager. Can you speak a bit about their relationship, what makes that so special?
Jaclyn Youhana Garver
This is a guy who moved countries with his family when he was ten. Adam had a very difficult upbringing. He says early on that it wasn’t cool to be the foreign kid in the ’70s, you know, that wasn’t a thing. Now, if you’re from another country in high school, you’re cool, people want to be your friend. They want to hear about it. That wasn’t a thing when Adam was coming up. I think he’s probably a little more lenient with Asha than he would have been otherwise. But he is also trying to be both her mom and her dad, and he wants her to be happy, and maintaining that positive relationship is what’s most important to him. I also think he trusts her. And that’s another reason that Asha has the confidence that she has. Even in her youth, he’s like, “Yeah, go ahead, go camping with your boyfriend and his family.” I would have never been allowed to do that in a trillion years, ever. At this point, if I want to go camping with my husband, I don’t think my parents want me to go. One of the biggest reasons Asha is who she is, is because she grew up with such a supportive, loving parent who trusted her.
Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch
What do you most hope people take away with them, when they finish your book?
Jaclyn Youhana Garver
We are not the choices we make when we’re in the throes of grief. I think that’s really important. I think we expect the best out of ourselves so much, and we expect the best out of each other all the time, and we’re all just trying to be happy. I want folks to either be on Asha’s side or be conflicted because they don’t think she did anything wrong. You know, she’s Googling, “Are you allowed to date someone when your husband’s in a coma?” I Googled that, because I don’t know the answer to that, this is a moral quandary. The pastor Asha reads about in the novel, I found a Catholic priest, a Q and A about that topic and I thought the response was beautiful. It was, no one knows your spouse like you. What would your spouse want for you? And if you’re in a healthy, loving, equal relationship, I think most of us would say, my spouse wants me to be happy. What does that look like?
FICTION
Then, Again
By Jaclyn Youhana Garver
Lake Union Publishing
Published November 12, 2024
