Entangled Objects: A Novel in Quantum Parts

by Susanne Paola Antonetta

Entangled Objects is a contemporary pilgrim’s progress, the story of three very different yet interconnected women. Fan is an adjunct professor, the daughter of a coal miner who attended college only to find herself teaching at a salary that’s brought her close to poverty-level again. Filomena is a maid who begins to steal clothing from the rooms of wealthy guests, dressing up and haunting the hotel where she works. And, there is Cate, a reality star who manages her own reality television career and that of her family.

All three characters confront the question: when are we most ourselves, when we realize the selves we aspire to, or when we are unadorned? The characters converge on the same place: Filomena’s hotel, where Cate comes to stay before a public appearance. The three point of view characters come together, after which each will come away changed.

166 pages, Hardcover

Published August 17, 2020

About the author

An American poet and author who is most widely known for her book Body Toxic: An Environmental Memoir. In 2001, Body Toxic was named by the New York Times as a "Notable Book". An excerpt of "Body Toxic" was published as a stand-alone essay which was recognized as a "Notable Essay" in the 1998 Best American Essays 1998 anthology. She has published several prize-winning collections of poems, including Bardo, a Brittingham Prize in Poetry winner, and the poetry books Petitioner, Glass, and most recently The Lives of The Saints. She currently resides in Washington with her husband and adopted son. She is widely published both in newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as in literary journals including Orion, Brevity, JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, Seneca Review, and Image. She is the current Editor-in-Chief of Bellingham Review.

Reviews

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three women exist in this novel. Ef or Filomena works as a hotel maid and has begun pilfering more expensive women's belongings. She pulls together a tasteful outfit to wear to a chance (expensive) dinner date with a prosperous male hotel guest.
Fan, a Shakespeare teacher, is living with her scientist husband in Seoul and hangs out with another wife.
Cate is a plastic surgery celebrity with some education that yearns for a deeper understanding of the world around her. Her sharp observation here is about what it meant to get a tattto: "you were trying to put what was inside of you on the outside." Her world is the real vs the artificial, with an interest in the flow of time.

Ef is fairly intriguing due to her fantasy life (tv viewing) and stealing. Fan seems to enjoy games with her husband like one game that involved drinks named after physicists' theories. (Hers was Everett's multiverse concept and displayed lots of different colored fluids). Another involved decoding a Feynman book for a party invitation with instructions on what color to wear. Interesting stuff for sure, but most people I know struggle to get the basics from an email.

There's a subplot about Fan's husband's work with cloning to develop stem cells. Fan advises him on how to answer reporter's questions about cloning, "Next time around my clone's doing the interview with you. He'll be genetically enhanced to answer stupid questions."

Another subplot deals with Fan's mother's death with an observation that the mother was never given a diagnosis (US healthcare aside?), but instead seemed to turn into the Oracle of Delphi.

This was a fine read. At times it seemed as if the author was attempting to shoehorn concepts into the fiction.

The author's note (saying that the characters exist at a deep level in the world of physics and are entangled) seemed to read almost as a disclaimer and perhaps should have been an introduction instead of a note. The reader picks up on this anyway.

WSU library

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entangled Objects by Susanne Paola Antonetta is a unique novel exploring the lives of three women.
These women are all totally different in terms of lifestyle, money etc but they are also remarkably similar in their experiences. Their lives all intersect at various points.
There was the theme of fake compared with being real. Sometimes people show the world a fake version of themselves – hiding under clothes and make up. Even the reality television show shoots so called ‘real’ scenes several times! At the viewing of a deceased relative, the family saw a different version of their loved one. Both life and death seem to present images to the world rather than reality.
A character is lost inside themselves with the cruel disease that is Alzheimer’s.
Entangled Objects was a unique read. I did not always understand it at times but I recognise that it is well written and the fault is mine. Susanna Paola Antonetta has been likened in style to Virginia Woolf. I studied her works as part of my degree many years ago – I never understood her either!
A word of warning: there are scenes with far too much ‘bedroom’ detail for my liking. I skipped over these.
I received this book for free. A favourable review was not required and all views expressed are my own.

[Stephen Haines · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve had the pleasure of studying under Susanne at WWU, and this is my first experience reading one of her books in full. The characters in here are rich and diverse and their situations “entangle” in interesting, provocative ways. The story moves in a meandering sort of way, pausing to muse often, but always upon matters that are intriguing and, in some way, shape, or form, are relevant and enriching to the story. The form of this “novel” itself is interesting, as it doesn’t feel entirely like reading a novel, though I don’t know what else one might call it. A unique and engaging piece of prose that I enjoyed from beginning to end.