cover image The Measurable World

The Measurable World

Katharine Coles. University of Nevada Press, $23 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-87417-273-7

Overambitiousness weakens this first novel, which the author has filled with a plethora of metaphors, characters double-loaded with idiosyncrasies-and a yawner of a mystery. In Salt Lake City, botanist Grace Stern is estranged from her cardiologist husband, Pascal, because he has strayed. But Grace, herself, has had sexual liaisons with two of her childhood friends-Rita, a lesbian activist and mortician, and Ralph, a lawyer-turned-barkeep. On the night that Grace promises to try to reconcile with Pascal, she meets him at Ralph's saloon; also there are Dan, Grace's gifted student, and the girlfriend Dan abuses, Bliss, who reads tarot. To Grace's horror, Pascal is shot in the parking lot, dying the next day in the hospital. As the identity of the killer comes to light, so does a constellation of sexual activity-but through these revelations, Grace is able to come to terms with her father, who abandoned her as a child, and to return to live with the grandmother who raised her. Cole, an English professor in Salt Lake City, is an accomplished and dynamic prose stylist, and Grace is an appealing heroine; but this novel's structure, flawed by uneven narrative rhythm and too many unanswered questions, can't support its burden of themes and plot lines. (Oct.)