cover image COYOTE MOON

COYOTE MOON

John A. Miller, . . Forge, $24.95 (302pp) ISBN 978-0-7653-0627-2

A prodigal ballplayer with a passion for physics and higher math and an aging physicist once infatuated with baseball energize Miller's fourth novel, a quirky romp through the mysteries of life, love and science. Benny Rhodes is a disaffected MIT physics professor who, after the death of his colleague and close friend, the brilliant mathematician Arthur Hodges, indulges his wanderlust and ends up living in a trailer park in Needles, Calif., accompanied by "extraordinarily fecund" Becky, with whom he fell in love during an Oklahoma layover. Meanwhile, Henry Spencer, a young paratrooper with only a hazy knowledge of his past, looks to be a rising baseball star—despite his lack of "Organized Ball" experience—and happens also to be an untrained mathematical genius. Henry makes the roster of the Oakland A's, and he settles in with his girlfriend, Ramona, the spunky waitress he met during spring training. But Henry splits midseason when he gets an invitation to visit Needles sent by one of the trailer park's baseball fans, and an unsettling synergy reveals itself as Henry, Benny, Becky and the rest of the oddball characters sit on the edge of the desert—might Henry be Arthur reincarnated? Miller balances his unpredictable plotting with some charming writing on baseball, physics and other mysterious forces, including sweet romantic chapters about the coupling of the characters. The result is a funny, unconventional meditation on the twists and turns of fate from an engaging, thought-provoking writer. (Nov.)