Useless Miracle

April 1, 2020
When a congenial college professor discovers he has the ability to fly, kind of, it wreaks havoc on his association of odd friends and colleagues. This is Schechter's follow-up to his conspiracy comedy The Blindfold Test (2009), and it features an equally quirky and multifarious cast, a bit of magical realism, and a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief. The novel presents as a memoir by family man George Entmen, an English professor at Northwestern University whose specialty is hermeneutics, an academic discipline that looks for the meaning in texts. More importantly, George learns by accident that he can fly, albeit at a height of no more than 4 inches above the ground. This could lend itself to a wild ride, plotwise, as a friend advises George: "Choose your narrative. Otherwise the press will hand you one. Do you want to be a paranormal guy, a saint, a superhero...." Instead, the story emerges as a farce bent mostly on skewering the academic world with a few minor pings at popular culture. Besides George's levelheaded wife, Rebecca, the most interesting character is his friend Harvey, a turban-wearing charlatan posing as a guru but also the one person who truly believes in this newfound miracle. George's superpower also riles up his social circle, which includes an implausible number of wannabe magicians. Most urgently, there's George's rival, Nelson Baim, a preposterously inept teacher who imagines himself a professional debunker, and worse, Baim's wife, Wendy, a wealthy, maniacal heiress who can't decide if she wants to seduce George or destroy him. A few dramatic set pieces and a surprising number of deaths and disappearances are both disconcerting and entertaining, but despite the sardonic humor, Schechter doesn't quite stick the landing with his deus ex machina denouement. A comedy of errors about the foibles of fame with a few preposterous jolts sandwiched between soliloquies.

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