Special Topics in Calamity Physics

by Marisha Pessl


Buy: @ Powell's Books
Extras: Website


Read if you like: Mysteries, Bildungsromans, Footnote fiestas, allusions to other books/movies/songs in your books/movies/songs, Brick (film), The Emperor's Children, The Secret History, To Kill a Mockingbird, L'avventura (film) and butterflies


Why should you read this?

1. Each chapter of is named after a 'classic' work of literature
2. A 'required reading' list serves as the table of contents
3. The appendix is an all-inclusive final exam. (I. true/false? II. multiple choice III. essay)
4. The narrator is fond of parentheses (!!!)






Oh, I'm sorry, did you want me to explain more? I only needed #1 to run to the bookstore to buy this beast, in hardcover no less! (My other hardcovers are like, Harry Potter...) But I am surely a different sort of creature than you, dear reader. For one, I'm sure you are normal and require more than some cheap gimmick to get you to shell out your cold hard cash. You win!

So Special Topics in Calamity Physics (STCP- the acronym I just made up) is principally the story of Blue Van Meer's senior year of high school. Of course, this is the first year Blue will spend a whole school year in one place. Normally she and her brilliant, political science professor father, Gareth, bounce from one tiny backwater college to another on his guest lecturer circuit. But her senior year, as we learn by the third paragraph, was the year Blue's childhood "unstitched like a snagged sweater." Also, by paragraph four there is a dead body. TWIST!

Gareth Van Meer as Dad is like Atticus Finch, but less qualified for saint-hood. The man can rant and rave in a beautiful fashion and he fills long drives with sonnet-a-thons. I know, he's awesome. But back to Blue. Her senior year at a private school in North Carolina involves all the best parts of prep school narratives without all the stuff that made Prep horrible (sorry if you liked that book, read this one instead). I have a soft spot for school plots and this one includes mysteries and academia and obscure film references and just enough romance and wacky esoteric teachers.

This book may not be your cup of tea. Negative reviewers have suggested that it tries too hard to be smart; that Blue, as a narrator, is too fond of parenthetical asides and literary references. I say POO TO YOU. Honest to God, while this is not nearly the best book I've ever read—hell it isn't even on my list of Great Literary Works (snob snob snob)—I would have KILLED to write this. You know what I would not have killed to write? Wuthering Heights (coincidentally, also Chapter #3 of STCP), so there you go.


Excerpt illustrating the fantasticalness:

The following morning at 7:45, when Dad dropped me off in front of Hanover, I felt absurdly nervous. I had no idea why. I was as familiar with First Days of School as Jane Goodall her Tanzanian chimps after five years in the jungle. And yet, my linen blouse felt two sizes too big (the short sleeves creased off my shoulders like stiffly ironed dinner napkins), my red-and-white checkered skirt felt sticky and my hair (usually the one feature I could count on not to disgrace me) had opted to try a dried-dandelion frizz: I was a table in a bistro serving Bar-B-Q.

"'She walks in beauty, like the night,'" Dad shouted through the un-rolled window as I climbed from the car. "'Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that's best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes'! Knock them dead, kiddo! Teach them what educated means."

I nodded weakly and slammed the door (ignoring the Fanta-haired woman who'd stopped on the steps and turned around for Dad—Dr. King's drop-off sermon).