calamity physics

So I'm making my way through Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, on the advice of my friend Dick, who never steers me wrong.  I'm loving it so far -- Pessl has this "extreme fireworks" method of writing, where even when you think she can't throw any more at you, the finale hits and it's even more spectacular than you had imagined it could be.  Case in point, this excerpt on the boy who is clearly from the wrong decade (p. 127).

He was the one with thick brown hair that flying-saucered over one eye, the one who inspired girls to make their own prom dress, the one from the country club.  And maybe he had a secret diamond earring, maybe a sequin glove, maybe he even had a good son at the end with three helpings of keyboard synthesizer, but no one would know, because if you weren't born in your decade you never made it to the ending, you floated around in your middle, unresolved, in oblivion, confused and unrealized. (Pour some sugar on him and blame it on the rain.)

It's that last sentence that just kills me.  It's obviously showoffy as a parenthetical aside, but still.  Wow.  (Image swiped from catchingfireflies1 @ Flickr.)

Comments

[lia]

I put off reading this book because of all the hype around it... and then I read it and regretted ever waiting, it was so good. I figured out how it was going to turn out fairly early on but man, it was such a pleasure to read that I almost didn't care.