Here and There

Debut author Scher's complex, literary meditation on philosophy, quantum mechanics, and the intricacies of marriage will reward patient readers. When brilliant physicist Kerek Reidier's penultimate teleportation test goes very wrong with his wife, Eve, and twin boys Otto and Ecco in attendance, the result is apparently fatal for all involved, yet no remains are ever discovered. Lab notes, transcripts, and audio and video were captured by nanobot cameras placed by DARPA in the Reidiers' magnificent home and analyzed by Dr. Hilary Kahn, who then disappeared. These artifacts are interspersed with narration by Daniel Brand, Kahn's son, who's trying to piece events together and figure out what happened to his mother. Footnotes from Kahn and Brand on their respective documents point at their increasing paranoia, and shocking revelations about Reidier's work in the second half are described methodically, which does nothing to blunt their devastating effect. The passages on quantum mechanics and philosophy can be dense, and Brand's meandering footnotes are often distracting, but the delicate and at times brutal study of the Reidiers' failing marriage is the heart of this multilayered and eerie tale, made even more so by its voyeuristic nature. Agent: Jeff Ourvan, Jennifer Lyons Literary. (Nov.)