Coincidence

February 1, 2014
Ironmonger (The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder, 2012, etc.) spins another nimble tale set on two continents, this one exploring the impact of coincidence by following a woman whose life is saturated by it and a man who studies it for a living. The book begins with the case of Azalea Ives, found at a county fair in England, wandering alone, at age 3. The trajectory of Azalea's life turns out to be one of strange events and coincidences that begin before her birth, extend into her 30s and, she fears, may bring her life to an early end. One frame of the novel describes her ancestry on the Isle of Man, while another digs into her early years as the adopted daughter of missionaries in Uganda. A third follows the relationship that develops when she seeks the counsel of Thomas Post, a young London professor specializing in the mathematics and philosophy of coincidence, and the most current frame watches Thomas as he tries to make sense of Azalea's life with his friend and adviser in the academic community. The Isle of Man story is as wistful and charming as its setting suggests, while the sections involving Thomas Post are largely an enjoyable audit of coincidence science. But the Uganda scenes, as hinted at by the map at the beginning of the book, are the heartbeat of the novel--vivid and suspenseful even before the arrival of Joseph Kony. This is by no means a traditional thriller, but Ironmonger whips readers between frames in whirlwind fashion and is a judicious withholder of information, so the suspense stays taught throughout, and the game of connect-the-dots is always afoot. The two protagonists could be more fleshed out; Azalea herself has a touch of Manic Pixie Dream Girl about her, and Thomas is every inch the bumbling academic. Additionally, the narration can be heavy-handed at times, but this tale is not a character study--it's a feat of cleverness. Weighty topics are seamlessly woven into this fast, captivating read.

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February 1, 2014
Ironmonger's first novel published in the U.S. charts Azalea Lewis and her complicated family across the British Isles and East Africa. The unlikely organizing principle is the seeming inevitability of disaster on Midsummer's Day, a fatal date across several decades. Although Ironmonger uses multiple characters and points of view, the novel centers on a love story between Azalea and an academic, Thomas Post, whose research focuses on probability. Ironmonger's prose is easy to follow, even with his peripatetic approach. His extended discussions of free will flirt with big questions, though the playful sparring stops short of challenging the reader. Ironmonger is at his best when he's able to link the various stories in a manner that's neither forced nor indulgent, in a modest but nevertheless lyric style: That fisherman would be the son of a fisherman, and he the son of another, and so it would go back into the past and perhaps into the future as if the pages of the book had already been written. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)