The Infinite Tides

Aug 09, 2012 John Luiz rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this novel, Kiefer has created a moving story about a mathematical genius, Keith Corcoran, who manages to fulfill his life mission of being an astronaut. The only problem is that when his teenaged daughter dies in a car accident while he's on an international space station, and his wife leaves him, he is left to deal with the consequences of the isolation he always sought out. Keith is a fascinating character. He feels more connected to numbers - which he sees in colors and treats as if they...more In this novel, Kiefer has created a moving story about a mathematical genius, Keith Corcoran, who manages to fulfill his life mission of being an astronaut. The only problem is that when his teenaged daughter dies in a car accident while he's on an international space station, and his wife leaves him, he is left to deal with the consequences of the isolation he always sought out. Keith is a fascinating character. He feels more connected to numbers - which he sees in colors and treats as if they have their own corporeal existence - than he does to people. He discovered early on that his daughter shares his gift, but when she becomes more interested in a regular life - dating boys and participating in cheerleading - he's disappointed with her.

After her death, he has to come back to earth and deal with his regret that his monomaniacal pursuit of his career goals took him away from his family for so many long stretches that he lost all connection to them . The house he moves back into - completely emptied of all furnishings when his wife left him with the request that he sell it - becomes a metaphor for just how empty and hollowed out his life has become. As sad as all this sounds, it's not a depressing book to read because Kiefer does a good job of getting inside Keith's head and showing how he perceives the world.

Be prepared when you read this, however, that there is a lot of lyrical writing, with very abstract language, that conveys Keith's mode of thinking. The first 40 pages alone are full of that language - as we get long descriptions of the best moment of Keith life's - when he's on a spacewalk outside the space station, installing a robotic arm that he, as an engineer, designed. It's moving and poetic - but it also takes a long while to get the main gist of the story - dealing with the aftermath of his daughter's death.

While I liked the novel very much, that was my one quibble with it - that it went down some tangential paths that aren't as compelling as the ones that flesh out the main premise of the book. I don't think it's fair to quarrel with how a writer chooses to fill out a story (but of course I will anyway) but in this case I was disappointed that he didn't deliver more background details about Keith's relationship with his daughter and his wife, and what his feelings might have been while he was locked up in the space station, unable to return to earth, until 3 months after his daughter died.

We get some of that, and when we do, they are the most powerful sections of the book - particularly the flashbacks of Keith discovering, when his daughter is very young, that she has inherited his mathematical genius and then later, during her teenaged years, when he tells her how disappointed he is that she close to lead the normal life of a teenager and not do more with her gift. With his wife, there is just a brief scene about how they met and then just brief and shrill phone conversations.

What we get a instead are a few, albeit very hot and sexy, scenes from the affair he starts with the neigbhor, and then many scenes about the friendship he strucks up with a Ukrainian immigrant he meets at a Starbucks who used to work at a Russian astronomical observatory, but who since coming to America has been underemployed as a stockboy at a Target.

Ultimately, that friendship becomes an important part of the story but for the early scenes when he keeps running into the Ukranian at a Starbucks and then rescues him when after he's passed out drunk there to the many scenes when they sit in an empty lot next to the astronauts' house watching the stars, it feels like a good chunk of the novel isn't living up to the premise the author set up.

While finding some of these sections a little slow and tedious, I couldn't help but compare it in my mind to another tale about the loss of a child told from the father's perspective that I read this summer. In the novel You Came Back by Christopher Coake, we start with a father who has just started to remake his life seven years after his son died, falling down stairs at home -- an event that led to the dissolution of his marriage. Just when he becomes engaged to the new woman in his life, a woman who bought his old house seeks him out to tell him his son's ghost in in the house, calling out to him. If you played the Stephen King game (suggested in his book on writing) of "What if" a character had to deal with this scenario, Coake delivers masterfully on every aspect you'd expect a man to have to deal with in that situation -- disbelief, anger, then a desperate wish to believe it's true, and then a a reconnection to his ex-wife when she hears the news.

In this novel about Keith's loss, I wanted to know so much more about his daughter, his relationship with his wife, and the three months he spent stuck up in the space station after she died, because conditions wouldn't let him return any sooner. By the end of the novel, though, the relationship with the Ukranian that didn't initially seem as consequential or relevant as any of those matters does play an important role in Keith's "re-entry" into life on earth. And admittedly, many of the details and story elements Kiefer choose to include fit with a man who lived so much in his head and had trouble connecting with people. Coming back to earth, Keith is forced to forge relationships -- he wants to do nothing but get back to work and lose himself into his career responsibilities, but NASA won't let him until it's obvious he's dealt with his grief and its main physical manifestation, severe migraines. The relationship with his Ukranian friend proves very important and in the last quarter of the book, their connection plays out in interesting ways. In the end, while I may not have been riveted to every single page, I still enjoyed the entire experience because the novel tells a powerful story about how one man deals with tragedy and begins to rebuild his life from the ashes of it.(less)

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Jul 03, 2012 Paul Wilner rated it 5 of 5 stars

he Infinite Tides
By Christian Kiefer
(Bloomsbury; 393 pages; $26)
The poetry of suburbia and space odyssey meet, successfully, in Christian Kiefer's debut novel, "The Infinite Tides." It's the tale of Keith Corcoran, an alienated astronaut who loses his teenage daughter to a car accident and his marriage to the consequences of that tragedy as he floats above the planet, wounded by migraines and Lear-like pain.

Grounded, he faces the reality of an empty ranch house, an empty life and the contemplati...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Beatnik Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars

http://www.cozylittlebookjournal.com/...

I don't know whether it was the writing style or the characters or the subject matter that I found difficult a the beginning of this novel (or just the fact that I had about a million other books to read) but I must have started it a dozen times before finally plunging in and reading it all the way through.

It's a novel about an astronaut and math genius named Keith who has just come back from space (so not so relatable for me) to find that his shrill, unf...more http://www.cozylittlebookjournal.com/...

I don't know whether it was the writing style or the characters or the subject matter that I found difficult a the beginning of this novel (or just the fact that I had about a million other books to read) but I must have started it a dozen times before finally plunging in and reading it all the way through.

It's a novel about an astronaut and math genius named Keith who has just come back from space (so not so relatable for me) to find that his shrill, unfaithful and perpetually unlikable wife has left him (a sore spot for me since I am a wife who is faithful and hopes to be likable but is, you know, human and possibly prone to shrillness) after the sudden death of their only daughter (there's the kicker--I always find child bereavement stories killers to get through...okay, poor choice of words). So this one was a tough sell for me. I almost gave up and moved on to something lighter or easier from my perpetually growing "To Be Read" pile.

I am so glad I gave it one more chance.

The Infinite Tides is a quiet novel that doesn't run from its own grief (even if the protagonist wants to). It's a novel that allows itself to be melancholy, gives the reader permission to cheer the tiny breakthroughs in recovery for our grieving hero Keith (in the form of his new friendships with two of his neighbours) but doesn't provide a sitcom happy ending where everyone's fine and it's as if nothing ever happened. The loss of a child is not like "a very special episode" of Family Ties and Christian Kiefer doesn't treat it as such.

In the end, it is a book I would very much recommend, but if you are a parent (or in the extreme unlikelihood that you are an astronaut), I would recommend reading it at home when you can check on your children regularly, and not while away on a trip (or in space). It'll make you wish you could tell the people that you love, well, that you love them.

Disclaimer: I received a digital galley of this book free from the publisher from NetGalley.com. I was not obliged to write a favourable review, or even any review at all. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
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Nov 22, 2012 Tom Burke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes I wonder how long I will float through this life without ever realizing the reason why. Maybe that's why I really enjoyed Christian Keifer's The Infinite Tides. In it the main character, Keith Corcoran, finds himself adrift in a peculiar sea. He is an astronaut on the International Space Station when his 17 year old daughter is killed in an auto accident. The sad news is broken to him by his wife on a video chat. Logistics of space travel being what they are, he cannot make it back ear...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Bessie James rated it 4 of 5 stars

There are some very great things about this book, some very sad things but it is certainly worth reading. I have no experience with many of the central themes here -- a taciturn, driven main character, the loss of a child, the world of higher mathematics, and space travel. It's to Christian Kiefer's credit that he can weave these elements into a book that hooked me for it's nearly 400 pages. His descriptions of the lifelessness in the cul-de-sacs of suburbia are reflected in relentlessly stark p...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Denise rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.5 out of 5 stars - "All you have ever done can be measured not by distance but by circumference."

Astronaut and engineer Keith Corcoran has reached the zenith of his life's ambition on a mission to the ISS. It is then, right after his finest moment, that he receives news that his teenaged daughter, Quinn, has died in an automobile accident. After several months of failed attempts by Mission Control, he finally is returned to earth and eventually to his house on an unfinished cul-de-sac only to...more 3.5 out of 5 stars - "All you have ever done can be measured not by distance but by circumference."

Astronaut and engineer Keith Corcoran has reached the zenith of his life's ambition on a mission to the ISS. It is then, right after his finest moment, that he receives news that his teenaged daughter, Quinn, has died in an automobile accident. After several months of failed attempts by Mission Control, he finally is returned to earth and eventually to his house on an unfinished cul-de-sac only to find that his wife has left him and the house is almost completely empty. What follows is a poignant tale of a man who has a relationship only with numbers mourning his losses in complete isolation. Unable to understand the concepts of feelings and grief, he remains in a state of suspended animation. Keith's history and family life are revealed in flashback fashion and the reader can see how the trajectory of his life has taken him completely away from what ends up mattering most.

Although there is a lot of mathematics and other scientific detail in this book that I completely had no understanding of, I was able to see that, because this character was driven by his intellect, he was unable to move through any sort of reconciliation with what had happened. He forms a friendship of sorts with a neighbor, a Ukrainian man with a keen interest in astronomy who immigrated to the USA only to end up working at Target. It is this connection that ultimately provides Keith with the chance to examine his past and come to the realization of where he was and where he might be going.

The novel is focused on one man's introspective self analysis and journey from paralysis to action. Because Keith was so unused to examining anything or living beyond his work, he has a very rough time and drifts in his own agonies of missed opportunities and lost love. It is sometimes very depressing but very moving. The reader is left with a reminder about the nature of our choices. We do not move on a flat plane up or down, but more so we spiral in an orbit around whatever center we have created of our life and our dreams.

This is not a quick read but is one that provides much to reflect upon. What does matter most in our lives? (less)

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May 16, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 4 of 5 stars

Keith Corcoran has known that he's wanted to become an astronaut for as long as he can remember. He has a goal and he follows his trajectory until he makes it. There is no word like failure in his personal dictionary. He has goals and when he makes them he attains them. A graduate of Princeton, he goes on for his Ph.D. in mathematics and engineering and it's not long before he's hired on with NASA and goes through official astronaut training. Meanwhile, he has a wife, Barb, and a daughter, Quinn...more Keith Corcoran has known that he's wanted to become an astronaut for as long as he can remember. He has a goal and he follows his trajectory until he makes it. There is no word like failure in his personal dictionary. He has goals and when he makes them he attains them. A graduate of Princeton, he goes on for his Ph.D. in mathematics and engineering and it's not long before he's hired on with NASA and goes through official astronaut training. Meanwhile, he has a wife, Barb, and a daughter, Quinn, who do not live with him in Houston while he trains. He tries to go back to see them every weekend but this plan falters and he gets back every other week, then every three weeks and then once a month if he's lucky. He becomes more and more distant to his family, especially Quinn, the daughter who he loves.

Finally he gets to go into space. While in space he gets the horrible news that his seventeen year-old daughter, Quinn, has died in an automobile accident. Shortly afterwards, Barb tells him that she is leaving him. He is not one to show emotions very well but he starts developing migraines of horrible severity which jeopardize his mission. It is three months until NASA can get him back to earth and he has to watch Quinn's funeral on DVD which NASA taped for him.

Keith has always thought that Quinn was just like him but only better, a natural mathematician who would go to a special high school academy and excel in math. Instead, Quinn chooses to go to a regular high school and becomes a cheer leader, not wanting to go to the 'nerd' school. She likes the things that teenagers like - cell phones, music, clubs, and has a boyfriend. Keith is unhappy with her and the very last conversation they had before she died, he told her he was disappointed with her. No longer was she the little girl who saw colors in numbers like he did, the girl with a plan. She was floundering - being a typical seventeen year-old. Keith wants her to have a plan, be like him and strive for something in the future.

Keith is put on medical leave after his mission and he goes back to his cul-de-sac where Barb has cleared out all of his personal possessions, leaving only a table and chairs and a sofa. He has a psychiatrist who tells him all the time that he sounds angry but Keith does not understand what the psychiatrist means as he doesn't 'feel' angry. He thinks of Quinn but he has not begun the real mourning process. His life feels empty but he does not dwell on anything in particular. He begins an affair with a randy neighbor who, it turns out, is married to the man that Barb left Keith for. Barb keeps calling Keith to the point that Keith has his phone number changed. She wants some money to live on but Keith cleans out their bank accounts and leaves Barb without a source of income.

Keith takes walks into the field behind the cul-de-sac at night and runs into a Ukranian immigrant named Peter who is an astronomer by hobby. He used to work as a tech assistant in a huge astronomical station in the Ukraine. He has a telescope and together they look at the stars and universes. Keith even brings his sofa to the vacant lot and they drink beer and smoke some pot as they look at the heavens. Peter becomes a real friend to Keith.

The story is beautifully written but it lacks the ability to really touch me in the ways that I believe the author meant to. I know that Keith has an internal grief that is paralyzing him but I just don't get to really feel it until the very end of the novel. I understand that he is floundering, that he can't put words to what he feels, that he is in real pain, but something is missing in the dialogue that makes the book seem a bit distant.

The end of the book is beautifully rendered and is worth reading just for that. His friendship with Peter blossoms and, through connection, Keith finds himself and learns to express his feelings. This is Christian Kiefer's first novel and it is a lovely one, filled with passion and angst. I look forward to his future writing which I will be sure to read.
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Jul 27, 2012 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, contemporary-fiction

Keith Corcoran is an astronaut whose daughter died and wife left him while he was at the space station a few hundred miles above earth. This is an interesting, cringe-inducing setup. The character is in the atmosphere (no gravity, get it?) when he receives the most devastating news a parent can hear and there is no possible way to get home quickly. He has to watch a video of his daughter’s funeral several months after the fact.

We meet Keith when all of this has already happened. He’s back on ear...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Ken added it

Shelves: x-d-out-books-never-finished

I made it about 80 pages into The Infinite Tides before I had to give it up. The novel centers on an astronaut whose daughter dies while he is on a mission in the International Space Station. He returns to earth, his daughter gone and his wife moved out and in the process divorcing him. As a mathematical genius, he struggles to understand and calculate the equation his life has become. He is, understandably, unable to process the events and uncertain how to proceed.

The first part of the book pa...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Lydia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: writers-i-know

Kiefer has written a novel about the solitude of an individual. He shows us the magnitude of our individual planet in the vast chaotic reach of space by way of creating an individual person, stripping of family, job, connection, and possessions, and stranding him in the vast impersonal landscape of suburbia. Keith Corcoran, astronaut, is this man. Earth is this planet. Both are one of many, many, uncountable replications of themselves, yet both are stunningly, inconceivably alone. We are all alo...more Kiefer has written a novel about the solitude of an individual. He shows us the magnitude of our individual planet in the vast chaotic reach of space by way of creating an individual person, stripping of family, job, connection, and possessions, and stranding him in the vast impersonal landscape of suburbia. Keith Corcoran, astronaut, is this man. Earth is this planet. Both are one of many, many, uncountable replications of themselves, yet both are stunningly, inconceivably alone. We are all alone, and there are no emotional epiphanies to save us from this.

What matters, when all you have is your *self*, and that self is so vulnerable, so fragile? In The Infinite Tides, an entire personal history can be wiped out by a lost bit of mail. A man can be laid low by a single blood vessel, a planet by a stray meteor, a great love by a collision with a tree. Nothing is safe, and the dangers intrude without regard or warning: termites, migraines, car accidents, meteors -- you can't control anything, and you can't even react. You just have to take whatever comes, even if it annihilates everything. There is no fate -- there is only math, and math is more ruthless than fate, and more final.

What saves the book from being basically a prose poem for a nihilist, is that redemption does come. Not from a glowing unicorn friend that takes Corcoran to Disneyland on a glitter rainbow (an ending I suggested to Kiefer on Twitter when I was partway through the book) or a wonderful carefree puppy that teaches him how to embrace life, or anything stupid like that. (Corcoran was ripe for the magical effects of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, for example. Fortunately one did not appear -- just a cynical housewife on the cul de sac, ready to yank his pecker but not forthcoming with life lessons.) Instead, redemption comes from the only place it can come: math. The same thing that brings the desolation, and the horror, and the isolation, brings the hope.

As we are small, and as iterations of us extend across the universe, there is a beauty and satisfaction, for Corcoran, in the infinity of fractals. The tiny speck at a central chamber of the nauticus' spiral, weak and fragile as it might seem, is actually the same chamber as the biggest one, a massive hypothetical chamber that takes up half the universe, and even a hypothetical chamber beyond that, that takes up double another universe. The concept of fractal iterations is one that haunts Corcoran from his own youth, to his parenting of his daughter, to the pivotal moment of the book which happens quite early in its pages -- he's at the end of a robotic arm that he's built for the International Space Station, and the arm is used to move things from one end of the station to the other, and he swings wide, away from the vehicle, and extends out into space. But when he's out there, swinging loose, it's not "Oh, I should have spent more time with my family" or "Oh, I miss love" that strikes him -- it's the vastness of it, the visible infinity of it, the real, brutal beauty. That's what matters.

In the tiniest is the most enormous. One leaf on the pythagorean tree is the entire tree, because it is of the same number. Really it's the ONLY way to address the solitude of the space between your ears, or the magnitude of the universe -- to draw a mathematical equation that says they're the same thing.

Kiefer's writing is perfect. His language is tight, but swells in all the right places. He uses words you'll want to look up, but places them so gently that you won't have to. His idea is big, but his character is what the story is all about -- this lost and grounded astronaut. Maybe being where he's been, and having lost what he's lost, Corcoran is the loneliest human on earth. Or maybe only the one who has been outside the earth and has seen it from afar is suited to see how we are all connected. Don't miss this quiet masterpiece. (less)

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Feb 29, 2012 Corinne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: norcal-writers

I managed to snag a galley of this book as part of my research for an article I'm writing about Sacramento area authors. I love that part of my job, I must admit.

I don't even know where to begin to sing The Infinite Tide's praises. Kiefer does a fantastic job bringing you into astronaut Keith Corcoran's world, a world in which he is lost and longing to be back in space, where things made more sense. The characters are complex and imperfect, the narrative is moving. He obviously immersed himself...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Newengland rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, finished-in-2012

Christian Kiefer's mellow meditation on fallen astronaut Keith Corcoran's life, THE INFINITE TIDES, takes you into its ebb and flow through the gentle persistence of everyday happenings as they lap up against the spaceman. A victim of a different sort of space disaster, Corcoran is on an international space station when he is told that his teenaged daughter has died in a car accident. He remains on the mission for three months and has to view the funeral by tape.

This is all in the past, however,...more Christian Kiefer's mellow meditation on fallen astronaut Keith Corcoran's life, THE INFINITE TIDES, takes you into its ebb and flow through the gentle persistence of everyday happenings as they lap up against the spaceman. A victim of a different sort of space disaster, Corcoran is on an international space station when he is told that his teenaged daughter has died in a car accident. He remains on the mission for three months and has to view the funeral by tape.

This is all in the past, however, as the book begins. The reader meets the astronaut in a Houston suburb where new pieces of wreckage appear from this earthbound tragedy. His wife has left him; she has emptied the house of all of its furnishings; and what remains becomes a metaphor for the shell of a life he must now contend with.

Meantime, a subplot begins to inch its way into the main one as the book unfolds. Corcoran meets a Ukrainian immigrant, Peter Kovalenko, who worked as an astronomer in the old country and is employed stocking shelves at Target in the new country. This bitter man frequently hauls a telescope into an empty lot adjacent to Corcoran's, then peers into the black emptiness Corcoran has just returned from to identify Messier objects in the night sky. The listless astronaut/protagonist moves between the immigrant's orbit, sharing beer and pot, and a neighbor lady's, sharing bed and showers. Adrift, in pain, and at a loss? This isn't the half of it, given the personal demons and daily slings and arrows that continue to assault him.

One philosophical thread surrounds discussion of a comet that has a slight chance of hitting the earth. Here is a typical exchange between the immigrant, Peter, and the astronaut, Keith, while gazing at the night sky:

"The world is always coming to end," Peter said. "Comet is coming or is not coming. So this does not matter."

"Very philosophical," Keith said.

"Not philosophy. True. Stars and galaxies are being born and dying. This is what you see when you look through telescope. Things sometimes crash into other things. Galaxies absorb other galaxies. These things happen. The world is always coming to end.

Keith paused. Then he said, "Let's party like it's 1999."

This humorous touch, coming through a metaphor darkly, is typical of the author's style. Peter's "non-philosophy" is actually an opening that Keith can choose to enter or ignore. He thinks his world HAS come to an end, but the Ukrainian would have him believe that "these things happen." Though he possesses a top rate mathematical mind, Keith Corcoran is struggling with this equation. Helping him through this problem during for a second reentry into life is this novel's sometimes sad, sometimes bittersweet mission. (less)

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Aug 14, 2012 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

Keith Corcoran is finally realizing his life-long dream of being an astronaut, living and working aboard the International Space Station, using a new robotic arm of his own design. Yet even at this moment of personal triumph, his world comes crashing down around him when his teenage daughter dies in an auto crash. Before he can return to Earth, his wife announces that she’s leaving him. And so it is that Keith finds himself returning home to an empty house, filled only with memories and unanswer...more

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May 28, 2012 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Let me start by saying I won a copy of The Infinite Tides through Goodreads First Reads. I love mystery and surprise and enjoy having the story unfold before me without any preconceived ideas or information that might spoil the plot or distract me from "hearing" the words of the author. I choose books by recommendation, rating, title, authors I like, sometimes cover art and usually the first line of the blurb (never more than that because it is TMI). Therefore, I knew nothing more about this boo...more

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May 20, 2012 Henk-Jan van der Klis rated it 3 of 5 stars

Keith Corcoran has spent his entire life preparing to be an astronaut. NASA sends him up to the International Space Station to install and operate a new robot arm. Wow, sailing tens of meter from the Destiny Module, only his pressure suit to protect him from empty space. Stars above, Earth below. A boyhood’s dream come true. Tragedy hits: his daughter Quinn has died in a car accident and Keith cannot do anything but wait. Houston compiles a funeral DVD with speeches and the rituals, but his fath...more Keith Corcoran has spent his entire life preparing to be an astronaut. NASA sends him up to the International Space Station to install and operate a new robot arm. Wow, sailing tens of meter from the Destiny Module, only his pressure suit to protect him from empty space. Stars above, Earth below. A boyhood’s dream come true. Tragedy hits: his daughter Quinn has died in a car accident and Keith cannot do anything but wait. Houston compiles a funeral DVD with speeches and the rituals, but his fatherhood fails. When it comes out, that Keith’s wife also has left their failing marriage, hell breaks loose. Back on earth Keith is alone, with memories and emotions he cannot bare alone.
What will become of him, a brilliant mathematician, Astronaut? Like infinite tides Keith’s life now consists of interlocking cul-de-sacs, big box stores, enormous parking lots. His empty house is eaten by termites and can hardly be sold. And yes, there’s hope: flirts with neighbour Jennifer, and a Ukranian friend Peter. Living under gravity’s powers is heavy, but we all have to face it everyday. Keith suffers from migraines and will not return to space ever. Even astronauts come back to life on Earth. The two of them hang out drinking beer, smoking weed and peering at distant galaxies through a telescope. A visit to the beach, and experience the tides come and go finish this novel. Both Peter and Keith are not happy in the here and now. But it’s only today that counts.
The Infinite Tides is both a powerful concept, but the continuous repetitions of mini-themes often distracted me. The actual space trip is only a small portion of the book. I’d like to read more on the preparations and relate more to the main characters.

About the author
Christian Kiefer earned his Ph.D. in American literature from the University of California, Davis, and is on the English faculty of American River College in Sacramento. His poetry has appeared in various national journals including the Antioch Review and Santa Monica Review. He is also an accomplished songwriter and recording artist. He lives in the hill country north of Sacramento with his wife and five sons.(less)

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Feb 05, 2012 Miranda rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read for a living. I am lucky enough to read a lot of good books that way (and, okay, many that are, well, not so good). This was an especially good year, but even so The Infinite Tides was neck and neck with David Vann's new novel for best book I got paid to read in the last two or three years. And it has the distinct advantage of not being excruciating from beginning to end (this is not at all a criticism of Vann, Dirt is a powerful book and worth the agony, but whatever reviewer said Vann m...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Julia rated it 2 of 5 stars

it was...okay. i'm literally using the goodreads definition of two stars as 'it was okay' though usually two stars is more negative. basically i'm just in a csssa funk and i always have to be reading or writing to distract myself from the fact that i'm not currently at csssa and it would be best if i were reading something really really good and this was just not what i needed. also it was painfully obvious that christian kiefer entirely lacks a math background (as he told us the day he talked t...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Lovepat rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an amazing book in many respects. The prose is beautifully written, so many sentences and passages that I stopped to reread and savor. The subject of the book is deep, powerful and universal- sense of self rocked in the face of great loss and the discovery of the infinite beauty and value of the everyday moment.
I can't say that I wasn't somewhat lost in the mathematical references but they defined the essence of the main character before his painful awakening. I didn't particularly like,...more

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May 25, 2012 Nic rated it 3 of 5 stars

Here's what the publishers have to say about it:

"A stunning debut novel about an astronaut's return to earth and the losses he must confront—elegant, moving, and deeply resonant with our times.
The Infinite Tides is a deeply moving, tragicomic story of love, loss, and resilience. It is also an indelible and nuanced portrait of modern American life, rendering our strengths and weaknesses with great and tender beauty."

And here's what I have to say about it:

Astronaut Keith Corcoran returns to Earth...more Here's what the publishers have to say about it:

"A stunning debut novel about an astronaut's return to earth and the losses he must confront—elegant, moving, and deeply resonant with our times.
The Infinite Tides is a deeply moving, tragicomic story of love, loss, and resilience. It is also an indelible and nuanced portrait of modern American life, rendering our strengths and weaknesses with great and tender beauty."

And here's what I have to say about it:

Astronaut Keith Corcoran returns to Earth after a successful mission to the International Space Station. His whole life was focused on his goal of becoming an astronaut and as he achieves his life long ambition, tragedy strikes his family. He returns to Earth without the wife and child he left with and has in their place crippling migraines and a general disconnectedness to his surroundings. Intending to prepare the family home for sale, he returns to the empty house at his soon to be ex-wife's bidding to meet with the realtor and finalise details. He finds the house stripped of all possessions apart from one - the giant grey sofa that he hated and his wife insisted on having.

We follow Keith as he comes to terms with the loss of his family and the potential loss of his career. He has to learn new ways of existing and interacting. He is forced into contact with a large, loud, Ukrainian man from his neighbourhood. This forced interaction causes Keith to face, and eventually come to terms with, what he has lost. He finds that he can have an identity other than "Keith Corcoran, Astronaut" and that perhaps he has gained as much as he has lost.

So what did I think of it? Christian Kiefer is a poet. That is very obvious from the outset. Those who know me will know that poetry is not my first love, so initially I found the book quite difficult to get into. I referred to it as the "sad astronaut book" for quite some time. There are passages where one sentence goes on for half a page. Seriously, I have two children, I don't have the attention span for that sort of thing.

But, it grew on me. Like Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett it's a bit of a sleeper. It creeps up on you and gently pulls you into its embrace. I didn't find Keith particularly likeable, I wanted to slap him at points and send him off for an ASD assessment at others. The book is very heavy on mathematics. Keith is a mathematician and he understands the world in terms of numbers and equations. Some of the passages I enjoyed most were to do with fractals and the synaesthesia that Keith and his daughter experience.

Overall I would rate it 3.5/5. If modern American literature combining poetry and mathematics is your thing, then you will probably love it.(less)

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Jun 13, 2012 Eny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very good book. I also found myself struggling a bit to grasp the first few chapters but I feel is mostly because of my lack of math or scientific knowledge and/or interest on these subjects. I did enjoy this book tremendously and I will reccommend everyone to give it a try, it is worth it. I was very satisfied with the sense of normalcy throughout the book. I sometimes find myself questioning some authors and they're overstating, and overdramaticing of life and family image. I also really liked...more

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May 09, 2013 Drew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's interesting how the summary on the jacket about an astronaut surviving in an alien world could be so completely misleading and yet true at the same time. The Infinite Tides is in no way science fiction or a post apocalyptic "survival book"; not in the way you'd imagine. It's about a man's world being turned upside down while he's in an incredibly vulnerable situation. And it's probably one of the best pieces of fiction I've read.

The writer's ability to put into words some aspects of our th...more

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Apr 07, 2012 Pam rated it 5 of 5 stars

This might be the best first novel I have ever read. I mean even counting the famous ones by dead people. The writing is rich and lyrical. The emotions complex. The math theory is super smart and compelling, without detracting from the emotional punch Astronaut Keith Corcoran's story packs. There are so may books these days where I think, this would have been such a good book if it had only been 100 pages shorter, but I could have read 400 more pages about these characters and in this voice. Bra...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Michelle Despres rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: novel

Fascinating idea. Excellent characterization.

Expect really long descriptions of actions and states of mind. Not a criticism at all, but the book could have been half the length (not that it should have been). Instead of something like: "He got in his car and drove to Starbucks." It's: "After considering the few options he had to whittle his day away, he slowly walked to car in the oppressive heat and humidity of this summer afternoon, intent on reading the paper and having his ritual cup of joe...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Keely rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: addictive

A profound debut novel illuminating the complex beauty of human experience, The Infinite Tides captures heartbreaking tragedy and transforms it into growth and beauty via the protagonist, Keith Corcoran. An astronaut, husband and father whose life changes overnight, Keith learns through tribulation to become a friend (in the deepest sense of that word) and to shift his values from the surface of culture to those which are most meaningful, in a world that has wrenched away that which he previousl...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Patrick44 rated it 1 of 5 stars

I gave it one star because zero stars doesn't show up.
With the grammatical errors I am surprised this guy is a writing teacher.
This book had no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
It was boring and depressing. I read it all hoping that the idiot would
wake up and smell the roses. I suppose the author was putting forth
his theory that we are consistent in our behavior.
It reminds me a little of the book Something Happened in that the character
was a hopelessly self-involved jerk.

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Jan 13, 2013 Andy Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

The first thing I'll say is "what a grim read". Not exactly what I needed to start the new year with. Very interestingly written, however. I have to say that there was a mixture of cinematic writing (ie the imagery was very well-explained yet there was not a very solid narrative voice), and a whole lot of right-brained stuff that I'm very unfamiliar with saying in literature. The ending was...well, quite a shock, but I'll let you experience that yourself. Would I recommend this? Yes, if you can...more

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Nov 13, 2012 Lyndsey rated it 1 of 5 stars

If you like an author who uses such large vocabulary in his writing and enjoy scrunching your eyebrows together trying to figure out what the FU** you just read, this is just the book for you! Whether he went a little overboard on the vocabulary or if I am too much of an idiot to comprehend his style of writing, this book was awful. I couldn't connect to any of the characters. One of the main characters who is from a different country had such broken up English, it was exhausting to read. I foun...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Jenee Rager rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1st-reads

I won this book from goodreads and was drawn to the description when I entered. As a parent it is hard to imagine fulfilling your life long dream (in his case it was to go to space) and then have your only child die, and your spouse leave you while you were fulfilling said dream and there be nothing you could do to get there, help, or make it stop. That thought is heartbreaking. Unfortunately Keith is not a very sympathetic character. You don't read the book rooting for his success or feeling so...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Robin rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this book as an act of solidarity with my daughter; she was reading it because it was assigned....I think the teacher who assigned it was schilling for (well really a good friend of) the author.

The first chunk of the book earned the adjective "infinite". But the characters were interesting even when the plot movement got stuck in the seemingly endless "house painting preparation" scenes.

I stayed up late into the night to find out what happens next to the characters...which is different f...more

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Oct 30, 2012 World Literature Today added it

Shelves: reviewed

"Christian Kiefer manages to enliven a slow-moving plot by flashback chapters of the astronaut’s early marriage, scenes with his daughter, and, most memorably, the triumphs of applied science and action in space." - W. M. Hagen, Oklahoma Baptist University

This book was reviewed in the November 2012 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/PFn1Xo

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