Bottom of the Sky

Starred review from April 1, 2018
"If the past is a foreign country, then the future is a distant star": lyrical, yearning novel by Argentinian writer Fresán (The Invented Part, 2017, etc.) of the search for better worlds, and better lives.All stories, Vladimir Nabokov once observed, begin "Once upon a time." Fresán agrees, calling that "simple magical line...the key that opens the lock of all the fairytales." So it is that, once upon a time, two boys smitten by science fiction in the old-school mode of Asimov and Heinlein form a partnership of two, The Faraways, singularly devoted to traveling across time and space to, yes, the bottom of the sky--and returning to tell the tale. The worlds that they dream of are surely better than the monstrous one of reality, which, as they pile on years and experience, becomes ever less tenable; Isaac, one of the boys, allows that the reasons for their addiction to science fiction lie in the possibilities of escaping, in the case of his cousin Ezra, from "the family tradition amid rolls of fabric and mannequins" while, in his own case, "as far away from my past and my family's past as possible." Along the way they encounter a "strange girl," ethereally beautiful, who, it turns out, is muse and dream and storyteller and perhaps even alien all at once, invading the male clubhouse of science fiction to offer still greater visions of possible worlds--a thing to stop a floundering he-nerd in his tracks. As Fresán moves the point of view from one character to another, he evokes the golden age of science fiction, a theme that morphs into others: the salutary power of the imagination, the collapse of the world in a time of terror, the grace of friendship and love amid dreams of "a planet that will be ours and only ours."A beguiling, elusive, and altogether beautiful story that, like Fresán's other recent work, imagines a world in which life and art are one.

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May 1, 2018

Sf fans Isaac Goldman and cousin Ezra Leventhal organize club Faraways, joined by their wealthy pal Jefferson Darlingskill and an anonymous young woman, whose presence creates a love triangle. Eventually, they all go their separate ways: Isaac becomes a writer (and narrator of the book), Ezra becomes a scientist and soldier, and the woman (another narrator) marries Jeff. Sandwiched between Fresán's bildungsroman Kensington Gardens and the metafictional The Invented Part, this 2009 opus contains elements of each but more specifically focuses on sf, though it is not an sf novel per se. The tripartite structure eschews linear narration in favor of a splintered, eclectic one, as the author shifts voices and employs devices such as time transpositions, extraterrestrials, and interplanetary travel while adding a hefty dose of intertextual digressions, the subjects of which are included in an appendix of acknowledgments. VERDICT Devoted sf fans will enjoy the guessing game of trying to identify the genre's literary (Philip K. Dick) and cinematic (2001: A Space Odyssey) allusions that permeate the text, but for those unfamiliar, the idea loses impact.--Lawrence Olszewski, North Central State Coll., Mansfield, OH

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Starred review from May 28, 2018
Fresán (The Invented Part) harnesses offbeat aspects from the golden age of science fiction for this tale that muddies boundaries between art and life. At its heart is the story of two boys seeking to escape reality through their love of SF, and the mysterious girl who drifts into their orbit. Fresán describes the work as “a clump of simultaneously broadcast messages, like a story line that wants nothing but to be a succession of marvelous moments seen all at the same time.” His writing fulfills this promise. The shifting points of view gradually build a tale that explores escapism and camaraderie. This is not an easy story to read; it’s an immersive, stream-of-consciousness account full of irony and sardonic humor. Fresán delivers an impressively slow-building, intense narrative with an esoteric love triangle and Philip K. Dick–inspired fever dreams at its center.