Schrdinger's Ball

Few novels attempting a deliberately bad explanation of the uncertainty principle could surpass this inspired romp from first-time novelist Felber, a comedian and TV writer. Several characters' disparate lives intersect in a Rube Goldbergesque sequence of events. There's Dr. Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel prize winner in physics, who demonstrated the fallacy of Heisenberg's theory of quantum uncertainty via his famous cat experiment, and the President of the Free State of Montana, who is fleeing to Cambridge, Mass., after an off-the-grid shootout with the Feds. Meanwhile, in Harvard Square, Johnny Felix Decaté, a young musician who is both dead and not dead (like Schrödinger's theoretical cat), is acting in ways that puzzle his friends; homeless woman Brenda is rewriting the history of the world; and the Prophet Bernie, a schizophrenic homeless man, is waiting for God's command to cross the street. All come together via a freakish truck crash that has lasting impact for all. Felber's debut is illogically, warmly entertaining. (Aug. 15)