Special Topics In Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

 

Blue van Meer has had an unusual upbringing.  Her mother died in an auto accident when Blue was five.  She grew up moving from town to town as her father took visiting professorships in various colleges and universities.  He made sure that Blue didn't lack for an education and indeed, she is far advanced from her peers although he has done most of her education himself.  As she nears her senior year, he promises Blue a year in one town so that she could more easily apply for her own university experience.  

They settle in a small Southern town and Blue is enrolled at St. Galloway, an exclusive school.  She is used to being the new girl and not having friends but for some reason the drama teacher, Hannah Schneider, takes Blue under her wing and invites her to her Sunday salon where the school's most popular students came.  Jade is the queen bee with Leulah her beautiful second.  Charles is the school's most desired boy and Mr. Everything, good in every sport and class president and prom king.  Nigel is slight but highly intelligent.  Milton is Blue's first real crush, a boy who seems older and a bit dangerous.

With her new friends, Blue becomes a more typical teenager.  They go to bars with fake ids, drink until they are drunk (a new experience for Blue) and the other girls pick up men for a night of fun.  The Sunday lunches are full of exciting topics and hints of mystery, most of which is supplied by the back story of Hannah, whom the students adore but want to know everything about.  When things turn dark, Blue realizes that once again she is on her own and must solve the mystery that she never knew influenced her entire life.

I adore Marisha Pessl.  She is an American author who grew up in Ashville, North Carolina, which is very similar to the setting of this novel.  She was twenty-eight when she wrote this novel so she was close enough in age to the characters to remember how high school attendees were.  Blue is the narrator of the novel and her intelligence yet naiveté is dominant.  The writing is very erudite yet the reader seldom feels lost.  The mystery bursts onto the scene late in the book with only the slightest hints that it is coming and the solution is one I never saw coming.  I can only hope Pessl has another novel in the works and highly recommend this one for literary fiction readers.