‘Special Topics in Calamity Physics’ by Marisha Pessl
I read this novel when it came out in 2006 and became so out of touch with reality that I found it necessary to spend several years in a psychiatric institution named “Cuckoo’s Nest” where my only friend was Nurse Ratched because we had an on-again/off-again fling during the shock treatments. This is the kind of thing that happens to a reader after reading a book with an unreliable narrator. I promised Mildred on the day I was discharged that I would one day re-read Marisha Pessl’s (Neverworld Wake, Night Film) novel Calamity Physics which I’m doing now even though Mildred Rached died in a state of shock on her wedding night and will never know.
Website Photo“Marisha Pessl’s dazzling debut sparked raves from critics and heralded the arrival of a vibrant new voice in American fiction. At the center of Special Topics in Calamity Physics is clever, deadpan Blue van Meer, who has a head full of literary, philosophical, scientific, and cinematic knowledge. But she could use some friends. Upon entering the elite St. Gallway School, she finds some—a clique of eccentrics known as the Bluebloods. One drowning and one hanging later, Blue finds herself puzzling out a byzantine murder mystery. Nabokov meets Donna Tartt (then invites the rest of the Western Canon to the party) in this novel—with visual aids drawn by the author—that has won over readers of all ages.”
from Kirkus Reviews“The writing is clever, the text rich with subtle literary allusion. But while even the gimmicks work well (chapters are structured like a literature syllabus; hand-drawn visual aids appear throughout), they don’t compensate for the fact that The Secret History came first.
“Sharp, snappy fun for the literary-minded.”
The very reliable narrator of my magical realism books set in Florida is a cat.
