My Meteorite: Or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing

In this astute debut memoir, told in a series of nonlinear vignettes, visual artist Dodge questions the seeming randomness of life. Dodge taps into philosophy, literary theory, film, language, and quantum theory, using his knowledge in these subjects as a prism through which to explore events from his life: the illness and death of his father, the discovery of his birth mother who placed him for adoption, life with his wife (Argonauts author Maggie Nelson) and children in Los Angeles, and preparing for an exhibition of his work. Dodge references science writer George Musser and explores what Musser calls “remote connectedness”—a “sort of alchemy” that Dodge feels “manifests in the form of coincidences, correspondences, or simultaneities.” For Dodge, it makes a sort of cosmic sense that decades after a high school trip to San Francisco, where he imagined meeting his birth mother in a bar called the Lost and Found, he finds out that she had indeed been a regular there. In a similar vein, a piece of a meteorite he ordered on eBay becomes a talisman to help him try to understand everything from environmental change to his father’s Alzheimer’s onset. Dodge’s memoir of “yearning to reenchant the world” entertains and enlightens. (Mar.)