This week: the newest from Edna O'Brien, and the link between jazz and physics.
The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe
Using his own life as the baseline, Alexander, a professor of physics at Brown University, sweetly riffs on deep connections between music and cosmology. Alexander begins with his childhood and youth, during which he discovered his own passions for both physics and jazz. His life story is filled with physics mentors with serious jazz chops as well as encounters with “physics-enthusiast musicians” such as Yusef Lateef, Ornette Coleman, and Brian Eno. Alexander likens theoretical physics to jazz improvisation and discusses the ways that being a jazz musician has benefited his own theories. Those without a background in musicology and cosmology may have difficulty following some of Alexander’s lines of thought, but most of his conclusions are readily grasped. In a key example, he lays out how the structure of the universe arises from a “pattern of vibration,” much like a musical composition. Alexander’s account of his own rise from humble beginnings to produce contributions to both cosmology and jazz is as interesting as the marvelous connections he posits between jazz and physics.
The Infidel Stain
Set around 1840, Carter’s outstanding second whodunit reunites Jeremiah Blake and William Avery, who tackled a baffling mystery a few years earlier in India in 2015’s The Strangler Vine. Avery, a former army captain who has returned home to England with his pregnant wife, responds to a summons from Blake, a private inquiry agent in London. Viscount Allington, a philanthropist and member of the new Tory government, wants the pair to look into two grisly murders that the police have neglected. Printers Nat Wedderburn and Matthew Blundell were butchered in their workplaces, their corpses displayed as if part of some ritual. The politician hopes that solving the crimes will serve to bolster the lower classes’ faith in the establishment and counter the growing appeal of the Chartists, who demand that all Englishmen have the right to vote. Carter excels at incorporating the volatile politics of the time into her cleverly constructed plot, which repeatedly confounds readers’ expectations while presenting moving scenes of the plight of London’s poor reminiscent of Dickens.
Summerlost
Condie (Matched) strikes a deep emotional chord with this coming-of-age story about 12-year-old Cedar Lee, who has moved to Iron Creek, Utah, for the summer with her mother and younger brother, Miles, as the family struggles to regroup after an accident claimed the lives of Cedar’s father and brother Ben. Cedar quickly meets enterprising, offbeat Leo, who gets her a job at Summerlost, the town’s yearly Shakespeare festival. As the new friends team up to give (unofficial) walking tours about the life of legendary actress and hometown hero Lisette Chamberlain, they become captivated by the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death. Condie is at her best in this foray into middle grade fiction, grabbing readers’ interest from the first page while creating memorable characters struggling through deep emotional pain. The thread of Lisette’s mystery is intriguing in itself, but Leo and Cedar’s unlikely friendship steals the show. Their adventures, set against the quirky backdrop of a community of personality-rich theater creators, make for a summer with plenty of good to remember along with the bad.
The Great American Whatever
Annabeth and Quinn were sibling filmmakers—she the director, he the screenwriter—and Quinn, 16, dreamed that they would become famous collaborators like the Wachowskis, Ephrons, or Coens. Then Annabeth died on an icy road. Six months later, Quinn’s mother is still grief-stricken, and Quinn has holed up in his bedroom. Into this stasis arrives best friend Geoff, who prods him to take a needed shower and get out of the house. Quinn tells part of his rebound story in screenplay form, but the key plot element is his flirtation with Amir, a college guy he meets at a party: the possibility of love (and sex and romance) makes him realize that there’s still a future to look forward to. Federle’s first venture into YA shares the same wry sensibility and theatrical underpinnings of his middle-grade books, while freeing him up to make some edgier jokes (“ ‘A little less tongue,’ he slurs, which was precisely the note I was going to give him”). The mix of vulnerability, effervescence, and quick wit in Quinn’s narration will instantly endear him to readers.
Half Lost
The Half Bad trilogy ends as strongly as it started in this conclusion to one of the finest recent examples of YA fantasy. Although the Alliance was nearly destroyed by the Council of White Witches, and Nathan’s father, the Black Witch Marcus, has been murdered, the ragtag rebellion continues. Nathan, never the most emotionally stable witch, is more fragile than ever, torn between the needs of the Alliance’s fight and his desire for revenge. The only thing that may save the Alliance is if Nathan persuades a powerful Black Witch named Ledger to give him an amulet that will make Nathan virtually impervious to injury. Green’s portrait of Nathan as a damaged mixture of good and evil, a sort of well-meaning monster, is masterly, and the series’ intensity and the author’s willingness to put her characters through enormous pain and transformative loss haven’t changed a bit. Powerful scenes of suffering, defeat, and—occasionally—triumph can be found throughout. Readers will finish this grueling, cathartic tale both relieved and satisfied.
Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939
Acclaimed popular historian Hochschild (To End All Wars) shares tales of some of the roughly 2,800 Americans who participated in the Spanish Civil War and relates the experiences of the two most notable journalists to cover it, Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell. He shows how the war was a brutal, cruel mismatch from the beginning, with Franco’s fascist forces strengthened by 80,000 Italian troops supplied by Mussolini, as well as weapons and airplanes provided by Hitler in exchange for war-related minerals (copper, iron ore, and pyrites). Additionally, Hochschild uncovers the story of how Texaco, headed by an admirer of Hitler, Torkild Rieber, provided Franco with unlimited oil on credit, shipped it for free, and supplied invaluable intelligence on tankers carrying oil to the Republican forces. The Republicans, meanwhile, embargoed by France, Britain, and the U.S., used antiquated weapons, including American Winchester rifles manufactured in the 1860s. Hochschild is an exceptional writer; his narrative is well-paced, delivered in clear prose, and focused on important and colorful details of the historical moment.
The Little Red Chairs
In a melodramatic (and appropriate) opening, it is a “dark and stormy night” when stranger Vladimir Dragan arrives in Cloonoila, a small village in rural Ireland. Handsome, white-bearded Vlad calls himself a poet and healer. He ingratiates himself into the community, offering rejuvenating massages. An Irish village is, of course, O’Brien’s (The Love Object) traditional domain, and as usual she conveys the close, warm, slightly claustrophobic web of small-town relationships. Vlad is eventually revealed as “the Beast of Bosnia,” a ruthless military leader responsible for thousands of deaths in the recent genocide. But meanwhile, Fidelma McBride, a beautiful, sexually starved young woman married to an older man, is transfixed by Vlad’s charismatic personality. She abandons discretion and arranges trysts so that Vlad can fulfill her yearning to have a child. Tragedy ensues: Fidelma loses her marriage, her self-respect, and is forced to leave Cloonoila. The scene shifts to a vibrantly intense London, where a penniless Fidelma must take menial jobs. Vlad’s trial for war crimes in The Hague is another jarringly effective shift of scene; it serves as the culmination of his victims’ harrowing memories, which are scattered throughout the narrative. O’Brien’s eerily potent gaze into the nature of evil is haunting.
Cold Barrel Zero
Thriller Award–winner Quirk (The 500) goes flat-out explosive in this superior military adventure novel. Ex-Marine John Hayes has assembled a team of special ops agents who have been put on a U.S. government kill list by mistake. In an effort to obtain evidence that will exonerate them, they pull off a spectacular armored car hijacking, seizing a mysterious 1,300-pound crate shipped from the Emirates to Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Thomas Byrne, a former combat medic who served with Hayes, is vacationing in Southern California when he’s arrested on trumped-up charges and brought to meet Colonel Riggs, who’s in charge of the military task force to capture Hayes. Byrne has no idea whether to trust Riggs or his old buddy Hayes, with whom he later connects. The explanation for all the mayhem rests in a war crime that Hayes supposedly committed, but as usual with this author, facts are slippery and doubts abound. There’s plenty of cool cutting-edge technology, but in the end it comes down to action, and the riveting battle scenes are among the best in the business. Readers will look forward to seeing more of the skilled and deadly John Hayes.
The Year of the Runaways
Lyrical and incisive, Sahota’s Booker-shortlisted novel is a considerable achievement: a restrained, lucid, and heartbreaking exploration of the lives of three young Indian men, and one British-Indian woman, as their paths converge in Sheffield, England, over the course of one perilous year. In India, Avtar Nijjar, unfairly fired from his job as a bus conductor, is engaging in a secret relationship with Lakhpreet Sanghera, the teenage daughter of a neighboring family. When Lakhpreet’s 19-year-old brother, Randeep, is forced to abandon his education, and their government-employee father suffers a mental breakdown, Randeep is sent to England to make enough money to keep the family afloat. Lakhpreet arranges for Avtar to accompany him, although Avtar must sell a kidney and accept a predatory loan to afford a student visa, while Randeep travels on a marriage visa. His bride is the London-born Sikh Narinder Kaur, whose desire to help the desperate Randeep runs counter to her family’s pious religiosity and her impending arranged marriage. Quarrelling, parting, and finding solace in one another in unexpected ways, Sahota’s characters are wonderfully drawn, and imbued with depth and feeling. Their struggles to survive will remain vividly imprinted on the reader’s mind.
