Three Stages of Amazement

November 8, 2010
Edgarian's accomplished second novel (following Rise the Euphrates) looks at the way the privileged cope—or fail to cope—when the fates turn hard against them. Charlie Pepper gives up his surgical practice and moves his wife, Lena, and family to San Francisco to found Nimbus Surgical Devices, just in time for the 2008 market crash. While he scrambles to replace funding, Lena has her hands full with the household, a premature infant with multiple health issues, a young son, and her own family. They are already teetering on the edge when Charlie is offered funding from the one source Lena will object to: her uncle Cal, the man behind her father's failed business and, possibly, his death. Edgarian is in fine form, giving readers a well-told story with characters of great depth and complexity, but it is her crystalline writing and the unique narrative tone that elevates this the most.