Special Topics in Calamity Physics

by Marissa Pessl

Introduction and Acquisition: A NYTimes article, I'm fairly certain of it. The reviews sounded promising, as I'm drawn to the quirkiness that it offered. I was also a fan of Donna Tartt's Secret History, to which the book was favorably compared.


Time and Circumstance: We just formed SFDS in late 2006, and I really wanted to start reading lots of books, wanting to immerse myself in literature, especially modern literature.

What's cool: Well, let's give Pessl an A for effort. She tried. She tried a lot. We have evidence of her effort in pages and pages and endless pages. I give her kudos for trying out a new shtick, the fiction tied into constant bibliographical references. If it was a short story, it might have been funnier. I did like the twist in the end - signs of author cleverness, very promising. Uhm... I liked the cover art.

What kinda sucked: The book was in sore need of an editor. It was unnecessarily long, and contained far too many of these 'shticky' bibliographical references to the point it drew irritation. It was not about the reader but about the author's ego, because the author seemed to underestimate the reader's intelligence that we couldn't get her shtick in the first place, thereby smacking us on the head over and over again with it. Yes, we get it - please stop. The supporting characters - the father, the teacher, the friends - were two-dimensional, and the main character did not hold my sympathies at all. And being a fan of Donna Tartts's Secret History, I am doubly offended at what looked like shameless plot-lifting.

What sucked most of all was the ridiculous amount of hype the book got, which was far beyond the actual quality of the book. It was amatuer at best, and there are far more interesting, intelligent, clever first time novelist debuts out there. This one did not by any means deserve the kudos it got.


Leftover Thoughts: I have introduced this book to my writing group as an example of what not to do as a first time author. I would probably feel less vehement about my dislike if not for the constant kudos the book receives. It was NOT that good, it was NOT worthy of such press. It reeks of politics in the publishing world, and has made me rather suspicious of the New York Times for putting it on their 2006 Most Notable Books list. Disgusting.