I found it really hard in this novel to understand the motives, thoughts and personalities of any of the characters, many of whom seemed strangely emotionally flat. Something life-changing would happen to them and they would barely react. Elements of suspense or intrigue would get introduced and then never mentioned again. There was also a disorienting feeling that the novel was supposed to be set in an earlier time. A lot of the characters' names were old-fashioned and especially the scenes of office life with female secretaries and barking male bosses put me in mind of a Mad Men-type milieu. Then the story would shift to something else with obvious markers of 21st-century life and jar me.

A frustrating read all round. Because the writer seems quite skilled, I have to assume the story was aimless and full of unresolved issues on purpose. Some kind of postmodern take on the pointlessness of life perhaps – would have preferred to know that going in instead of being sold a thriller by the marketing text. ( )

A few years ago I was enticed by Charlotte Rogan's debut novel, The Lifeboat. A pretty cover and an intriguing premise drew me in; bad reviews and a strange similarity to a John Steinbeck story pushed me away. Ultimately, it was the Steinbeck connection that kept me at bay. Wasn't Steinbeck's script, also named The Lifeboat, pretty much the same story? One cannot mirror greatness and expect to measure up.
Now and Again, Rogan's second novel, hooked me with the same elements. I liked the cover. I liked the premise. And this time I wasn't going to let bad reviews, of which there were many, get in the way. With my previous experience, I should've known Now and Again would remind me of a bad Steinbeck rip-off.

Now and Again started off well. I liked the characters, their voices, and felt, with few exceptions, that they were mostly handled with skill. Even as far as half way into the book, I felt like Rogan might have put together an interesting read. But then the comparison became evident. This time, it was the The Grapes of Wrath. No, Now and Again bears no similarity to Steinbeck's Pulitzer-winning novel in plot or subject. In fact, in most ways, the two novels have nothing to do with one another. Where the comparison is drawn, however, is in the commentary on social injustices. The Grapes of Wrath blew apart corporate greed. It exposed a nation to the plight of migrant workers. It moved and the world felt it. Now and Again tries in similar fashion to be a social commentary... on everything. EVERYTHING. Rogan tackles war, religion, technology, ethnicity, environmentalism, television, pharmaceuticals, greyhounds, … (I'm just scratching the surface) and the result of such a wide spread blanket of injustice covers nothing. It unravels. Even though I believe passionately in many of the topics Rogan covered, I could care less with this presentation. The weight of too many causes ripped a hole through the middle of this story. And when there's a hole in the middle of a book, one cannot help but see the author, writing furiously, on the other side. ( )

Wow this one is hard to review. There are 2 separate storylines here--that of Maggie and the rest of the folks in Red Bud, where a munitions plant keeps the war effort stocked and a prison of inmates is used for some sort of labor. And then there are Penn Sinclair, Danny, Pig Eye, Le Roy, and Joe Kelly--a group of soldiers who had been together in Iraq and have largely come back together to expose the lies of the war effort to the American public.

The only character in both of these stories is rather minor--Dolly, Danny's girlfriend and a midwife in Red Bud.

I kept expecting these 2 stories to come crashing together to resolve something. But it never really happens. And nothing is really resolved (not that the issues in this book could truly be, since they are real and they are current and ongoing in real life). Yet what one might expect if this were to go down in real life doesn't really happen either. Or at least Rogan doesn't actually finish that part of the story.

So, ultimately this was disappointing. ( )