Ask Again Later: A Novel [Hardcover]

Jill A. Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2007

Emily has a tendency to live with one foot out the door. When her mother dramatically announces, "They've found a lump," Emily gladly leaves behind her career, her boyfriend, and those pesky, unans­werable questions about who she is and what she's doing with her life to be by her mother's side. But back in her childhood bedroom, Emily realizes that she hasn't run fast or far enough—especially when she opens the door, quite literally, to find her past staring her in the face.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, New Yorker Emily Rhode ditches her too-perfect boyfriend and far from perfect legal career to become her mother's primary caregiver. At the same time, she reconciles with her estranged father, who left when she was five. When he offers her a job as a receptionist at his law firm, complete with Friday martini lunch dates and father-daughter cab rides to work, Emily agrees, and jokey family bonding follows as mom skates through treatment and dad proves to be more of a teddy bear than an iceman. Davis, author of Girls' Poker Night and a former writer for The Late Show with David Letterman, loads the narrative with one-liner asides and funny riffs (there's a particularly good bit about espresso machines), though she's less adept at sizing up Emily's inner turmoil, notably her fear of committing to smart, patient and loving boyfriend Sam. Though soft-focused (taking care of cancer-stricken mom mostly consists of watching TV and playing board games), Davis's book leavens regret and tragedy with a light-handed wit. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

Emily Rhode, the heroine of Davis' second novel, has a lot in common with Ruby Capote in Girls' Poker Night (2002). Like Ruby, Emily hides behind her wit, shirks commitment, and has daddy issues. Emily's father left when she was five, but he has suddenly reentered her life His reappearance coincides with a crisis in Emily's life: her mother has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Suddenly Emily isn't sure if she wants to be a lawyer, and abruptly quits her job. This conveniently separates her from her lover, Sam, whom she's unwilling to admit she's in love with. She takes a job as a receptionist at her father's law firm and moves in with her mother, getting to know her parents in a way she hadn't before, and in the process learning more about herself. Davis digs deeper than she did in her first novel and in doing so comes up with a book that is both very funny and deeply moving. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; 1 edition (February 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060875968
• ISBN-13: 978-0060875961
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,600,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jill A. Davis, born in 1966, is an American author and television writer. She is a member of the Writers Guild of America. She was nominated for 5 Emmy awards for her 6 years of work as a writer for Dave Letterman. Her first novel, Girls' Poker Night, was a New York Times bestseller. It was published in 5 languages, and twelve countries. Her second novel, Ask Again Later, also a bestseller, is now held by almost 900 libraries.

Prior to working in television, Davis was a newspaper reporter and columnist. After leaving the Late Show, she created and executive-produced a television show pilot for Dreamworks starring Tracy Pollan, Anna Says. She also wrote and published a number of screenplays, teleplays, short stories and magazine articles.

Davis, originally from Pennsylvania, is a graduate of Endicott College and Emerson College, majoring in journalism. She has an Honorary PhD of Arts & Letters from Endicott.

She is married and lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

137 of 138 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Ask again later"....It's my favorite non-answer., January 29, 2008

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ask Again Later: A Novel (Paperback)

Jill A. Davis somehow manages to write hysterically funny stories about the oddest people in a manner so smart and lucid that the reader is left chuckling with every page - while at the same time falling in love with the zany heroine of her latest book, Emily Rhode ('or Road' or 'Rowed' or even 'Rode', depending on the state of mind and at times acerbic patter of this marvelously created character). This is a book that sparkles with witty prose, high and low humor, and surprisingly a sensitive degree of philosophy about the current condition of life we are all living. The balance between funny and touching keeps the scales even, making the reader laugh at situations that in themselves are not at all funny - unless you have the perspective of Emily 'whatever'.

Emily is a trained lawyer whose career is put on hold with the sudden hyper-dramatic news of her mother Joanie's lump. No, cancer isn't funny, but Joanie is such a wildly entertaining character that when Emily moves in to care for her, all goes slightly bizarre. We meet the father Jim who left the family when Emily was very young and for whom she has no concern, the spendthrift airhead sister Marjorie who treats the world like a shopping party, Rick the boyfriend of Emily to whom she cannot commit, Perry her gay therapeutic friend, and Paul her therapist whose sessions contain some of the most hilarious (and most insightful) moments in the book. Divided into very short, titled 'chapters', Davis ably lets us get close to Emily by exploring her foibles and her perception of the world and her family by means of what could be stand-up comedy routines - until the sadness peaks through. Marriage, therapy, death, fatal illnesses, fidelity, menial jobs for overeducated people, failed relationships - all are grist for Davis' keen mind and wit.

An example of Davis' writing: 'As she's lying there waiting for surgery, I imagine a cancerous Pac-Man - or Lady Pac-Man - running through her body eating up her healthy tissues, her life, expanding its mass and taking over. Devouring the flesh that nurtured me, or longed to. I want to scream. And I'm mad that I'm of a generation that can best relate to parent's cancer to a video game.' And that is only a short tidbit of the superb writing by Jill A. Davis. This is a smart book, exceedingly well written, and one of the most entertaining reads of the year! Now in paperback... Grady Harp, January 08

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chick-Lit with no gum-snapping annoyances, February 8, 2008

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ask Again Later: A Novel (Paperback)

While I am not a fan of Chick-Lit, I can confess to enjoying the occasional girls'-night-out-novel. Jill Davis is a young, savvy writer who has the pulse of the American young woman. This is not fluff (I'm thinking Shopaholics, for example, pure candy) but neither is this E. Annie Proulx. Davis' work is about real life, real situations with an overlay of humor that is a welcome seasoning.

Her prose hits all kinds of marks--my favorite passage happens to be a tart summary of how all soap operas are constructed ("The two-faced nurse", "the former stripper turned nurse" and my personal favorite "the hot but altruistic doctor who spends his vacations fixing the cleft palates of orphans in South America.") This got my attention. The scenes are tightly written--no excess of words and the descriptions make you feel as if you are right there with the characters.

The plot revolves around Emily, who goes to support her mother when she is diagosed with breast cancer. Emily has to cure monsters of her own back under the bed of her childhood bedroom. For anyone who wonders what "closure" actually means and also wonders if you can go home again, Davis creates an interesting novel around this situation. It reads like a clever television series, and is not a heavy book despite the subject matter. It's full of life and humor, sure to be a favorite with women's book groups.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Disjointed Beginning with a Better Ending. . ., June 29, 2008

By 

K. Caldwell (North Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ask Again Later: A Novel (Paperback)

I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed. I wanted so badly to like Ask Again Later because I seem to remember liking Girls Poker Night so much when I read it a few years ago. Apparently it was not to be.

I read a lot, and even though I sometimes read on a rush hour bus, I'd like to think I'm not incapable of keeping track of a book's plot and sequence of events. But I found the book to be very disjointed, as I believe another reviewer mentioned. I was not sure in the beginning whether it was taking place in present day or in looking back, especially in terms of her father and where she was working. I figured it out soon enough, but why should that have been so difficult. The transitions just seemed to be lacking, especially from the start, which I guess put me in the wrong mindset to enjoy the rest of the book.

The characters - I didn't love them. Didn't really like them very much in fact. I can understand lack of commitment and wanting to escape, surely -- (I read and love Anne Tyler's books, after all) -- but Emily didn't really do anything to make me like her, in spite of her faults. And honestly, aside from a few, funny oddities and quirks about her "new" place of employment, I wasn't really laughing.

I will admit, though, that my opinion of the book greatly changed during the final third of the book. I think Davis found her voice, as Emily began to find herself. Transitions were clearer. The plot flowed more easily. In fact, if the first two parts of the book were any more like the third, I think I would have enjoyed this book quite a lot. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

I picked up Ask Again Later without reading reviews on it because I had liked Davis' previous book and that was good enough for me. This book wasn't horrible. There was nothing particularly bad; there just wasn't anything that made me stand up and say "wow" either. Regardless, I probably will pick up her next novel when she writes one in the future and give it a try.