Theater of the Stars: A Novel of Physics and Memory

I'm working backwards through Kelby's novels. I started with Whale Season which was remarkable cover to cover, every page, every sentence. However, Theater of the Stars worried me throughout the beginning of the book. I started to wonder if it was as good as Whale Season, but once the separate stories of lives started to show relevance with each other, the book became much more interesting. I couldn't put it down. An entirely different story concept written in the same style, Theater of the Stars is equal if not better than Whale Season, and I can't wait to read In the Company of Angels.

After reading Nicole Kelby's first novel, the brilliant and moving IN THE COMPANY OF ANGELS, I naturally worried that her next work would fall short of the high mark her debut attained. I needn't have been concerned. THEATER OF THE STARS shows without a doubt that she is a writer of exceptional talent and spirit - and that she has stories to convey that will leave an imprint on the soul of the reader long after the last page has been read.The great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky saw time as continually folding back upon itself, doubling itself at every instant, with the past continually co-existing with the present. I got a sense of that while reading this novel: the focus jumps from chapter to chapter between the present and the past, but it does so effortlessly and fluidly, never leaving me with the feeling that I was being jerked around. Kelby's gentle but thorough style, and her incredible sense of feeding information to the reader at just the right pace are responsible of this, I believe.The story concerns a journey of memory and spirit undertaken by several characters, centering on two women, a mother and daughter. Both of them are physicists - and both of them have dizzying gaps in their memories of their pasts. When they set about to fill these gaps, and to reconcile the emptiness and pain they feel, a labyrinth of paths and lives appears - it is the unraveling of this labyrinth that draws the reader through the journey undertaken by these characters, and there are many wonderful discoveries to be made about them and ourselves along the way. There is quite a bit of science at play in the book - but not so much that a layman can't both appreciate and enjoy the ride. The book is in many respects a mystery - there are secrets to be uncovered and explained, ties to be established and reconciled, and life-changing lessons to be learned. It all comes together beautifully - and it has a lot to teach us about how all of the lives on this planet are tied together, and how we view those with whom we share it. There are lessons here about love and family and spirit and prejudice - lessons we could all stand to review again and again.There is also - as in Kelby's previous novel - an undercurrent of spirituality that flows like a secret but powerful river, carrying along the characters as well as the reader. It never attempts to `preach' or advocate any particular belief system or creed - it's simple there, and it's presence is undeniable and comforting. My advice is to let yourself be borne by it where it will take you - it's a rewarding journey. I can't wait to see where she takes us next - this is a writer whose work I know I'll be seeking out for a long, long time to come.

This is a beautifully and economically written, minutely-researched, thoroughly engaging, disquieting novel that illustrates how human intentions and motivations become nearly irrelevant in the march of both public and personal history. Set in present-day Paris, it flashes back into the strange, nerdish world of nuclear research that led, ultimately, to the bombing of Hiroshima. It stretches into astrology, dabbles in human treachery and touches upon our human eagerness to judge others by culture and creed. It picks through memory, showing the reader a reality that the characters themselves can never fully see even as they live it. All these big themes in fewer than 300 pages, in which a woman searches for the truth about her unknown father as her mother lies dying.I ordered this book because I loved "In the Company of Angels"--so much that I've sent it out to just about everybody I know. This novel is quite different in form and content from its predecessor, which relied heavily on magical realism, but it is no less masterful. But in both books, Kelby's ability to put life into perspective through her writing--the talent to show the proverbial "universe in a drop of water"--is phenomenal."Theater of the Stars" had me turning pages and staying up late; I was far from disappointed in the ending, but I was definitely disappointed that it had to end so soon. I seldom read a book twice, but I've already started on my second time through. There's so much here.Susan O'Neill, Author, Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam