How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

May 26, 2014
Netzer’s second novel (after Shine Shine Shine) ties together cosmology, astronomy, and astrology into a dense but absorbing meditation on destiny. After making a career-defining discovery, astrophysicist Irene Sparks is leaving Pittsburgh, Pa., to take a job at the Toledo Institute of Astronomy in her old Ohio hometown. Returning to Toledo means confronting her complex relationship with her recently deceased mother, a lifelong alcoholic who worked as a professional psychic. Most of the staff at TIA is indifferent to Irene’s arrival or outright unwelcoming, but when Irene meets her new colleague, George Dermont, they immediately feel a powerful connection to one another. But what Irene and George don’t know is that 29 years prior, their mothers—both astrology enthusiasts—made a pact to conceive a pair of cosmically ordained soulmates, then separate them so that they can find each other again. The knowledge that they were quite literally made for each other shatters the worldviews for both George (a self-described dreamer with an interest in mythology) and Irene (an empiricist to her core). Although the high-concept astrophysics and philosophy may initially feel daunting, and the story frequently veers from quirky into just plain weird, things pick up speed as well-rounded characters and a few surprising twists are introduced. Whatever their beliefs on fate, readers will root for George and Irene to find their way back to each other. First printing of 100,000 copies.

February 1, 2014

At the Toledo Institute of Astronomy, George Dermont is hoping to prove the scientific existence of a Gateway to God. Clear-eyed mathematician Irene Sparks has come to the institute to direct work on its massive superconductor. Imagine their surprise when they fall for each other, then discover that their mothers raised them together and subsequently separated them in an attempt to engineer true love. Just the kind of touchingly offbeat stuff you could expect from the author of Shine Shine Shine, a big debut that was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, and more.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2014
Here is a diverting romp through two generations of well-intentioned friends and lovers as Netzer tells the story of bernerds Irene Sparks and George Dermont and explores the concept of soul mates. Do soul mates actually exist in the real world? Can they, or a tolerable facsimile, be artificially constructed? If such a thing does exist, must both soul mates succumb to their fate? And so at the precise moment that cosmologist Irene hits the absolute pinnacle of her career, her estranged alcoholic mother plummets down a flight of stairs to her death. Is it coincidence that draws Irene back to her hometown, Toledo, Ohio, to bury her mother and accept a dream job at the prestigious Toledo Institute of Astronomy? Is it fate that George, a darling of the TIA, must vacate his office and his assistant in order to accommodate Irene and her new position? Can love happen between this controlling ice queen and this lonely seeker who converses with ancient gods? Netzer, author of the much-heralded Shine Shine Shine (2012), posits these and other questions in her much-anticipated, fabulous second novel, which begins when two 1970s flower children connive to predestine the future marriage of their spawna pair of misbegotten twenty-first-century geeks.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)