Evidence of Things Unseen

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Two years later Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium -- a new element -- in uranium ore. The radium, itself, owned the capacity to glow. Soon after the Curies' discovery, Becquerel went to visit them at their Paris laboratory and asked if he could take a sample of their new element home with him for experiment. They gave him a phial of liquid radium which Becquerel placed in his waistcoat pocket next to his pocket watch. By the time he undressed that night, six hours later, the radium had burned an outline of the phial onto the surface of his skin through three layers of clothing and had irradiated the numbers on his pocket watch so he could read them in the dark.

Soon before he joined up to go to War, Fos had read that a watch factory in Salem, North Carolina, had closed down because a dozen factory workers, watchface painters, had developed a mysterious bone disease, necrosis of the jawbone, and subsequently died. What the article in the local paper hadn't said was why only the painters at the watch factory had fallen ill. But Fos had guessed the reason. Working on a field that small, painting lines the livelong day on a circle half the size of a silver dollar, the watch painters had a built-in opportunity to attract hazard to their bones, especially if the paint contained pure radium.

No doubt for precision and to perfect their points, every quarter hour -- maybe even every minute-on-the-minute -- the painters must have licked their brushes. So Fos understood the culinary subtleties the Frenchman had referred to when he said, Don't eat it. Fos was never one for insubordination but the truth was until he saw the radium he'd been thinking he should come clean to the Canadian and tell him to tell the Frenchmen that there'd been a regimental error and they'd recruited the wrong guy. It would have been a stupid thing to do, Fos knew. Even in so short a time as he'd been in France he'd heard the horror stories about what they could expect once they moved into the frontline trenches.

At least if he played along here with the Frenchies he might reasonably expect to stay behind the front. When he thought about it he knew he was better off making flares and staying under cover than strapping his gas mask on, arming His Trusty with its bayonet and hurling his entirety against sure desolation, land mines, and the unknown of that hell between the trenches they called No mans land.

Still, until he saw the radium Fos wasn't keen on simply playing out his Army time setting loose a load of chemistry into French heaven. But when he saw the radium he knew at once there was before him something he had dreamed of: Chance of a lifetime. It wasn't the last time nature's active miracles would offer Fos A Chance, but they weren't always as self-evident as that one was.

That one was a beaut -- the first step in a chain reaction of events that soon had Fos sharing a cramped space dubbed the Boom Bunker in the trenches on the American Line southwest of Verdun outside the town of St. Mihiel with an intense fella from Tennessee they called "Flash" Handy who would ultimately change Fos's life. Flash was the regimental photographer and he and Fos were the only boys -- other than the mustard gas and chlorine boys in the Chem Corps -- who were supplied with active chemicals on the front line. Fos had all the oxidizers, neons, burn reducers, phosphorescents, and fluorescents he needed to create a Light at the end of every tunnel for the doughboys in their darkest hours: Flash had the acid baths, developers, gum-bichromates and platinum and silver powders for his photographs.

If the Jerries had ever landed a live one on them Flash and Fos had enough volatility in store to take the whole American Expeditionary Force one way to the moon. Fos, himself, took a nasty dose of mustard gas on the September morning the First Army made their raid on St. Mihiel, and after that his eyes watered continuously. He couldn't see without his specs in daylight, but his night vision stayed the same as it had always been -- and it had always been near superhuman.

It was legendary, all the things that Fos could see that others couldn't in the dark. Which meant that not only was he indispensible on night maneuvers in the field but he was also an enlightened wizard in the darkroom -- a fact which Flash was quick to grasp. Fos could make a photographic print with such resulting subtle nuance and precision it seemed the image that emerged onto the photographic paper had been bled from Fos's hands.

When the armistice was called on November 11, Flash's unit was dispatched to Rouen for the Occupation, while Fos's went to Metz, and the two of them were forced to go their separate ways. But when Fos returned to Kitty Hawk in the late winter of '19, Flash offered him a partnership in his studio in Knoxville, Tennessee. Fos packed his x-ray books and tide charts into his Army footlocker and drove his old Ford truck away from the Atlantic Coast on the hottest August morning of that year on record.

For as long as anyone could remember, Fos's people had been lightermen in and around the shoals and hoaxing sands of the Outer Banks -- conveyancers of cargo in scoop-hulled longboats called lighters in those waters -- until the family tree had pruned down to a single shoot, Fos, like a pot-bound exotic in an orangerie too strenuously pollarded. Tidal salts ran in his blood. As he drove away that blistering morning and the land fell off behind him in the first swell of its Continental self, Fos felt a tightness in his chest and his eyes began to water.

Well his eyes were always watering, fogging up his glasses. Blister gas, the boys had called the mustard, because that's what it did. You couldn't see it coming and it didn't hit you right away but several hours after it got to you it blistered every living tissue it had touched -- in Fos's case, his corneas and tear ducts. The specs -- rimless so he didn't have to view the world through picture frames -- gave his face a bookish absent-minded look, and the fact that he was teary most the time endeared him to old folks and certain kinds of women. But the truth was, for that first year after he was demobilized, that first year in Tennessee, Fos eschewed the company of the gentler sex and stayed almost entirely to himself, either in the darkroom or in his rented place above a bakery, studying about light and working on his theories how to capture it.

Fos had several theories that first year. One thing that the War had taught him -- and that working under Flash's tutelage added to -- was how to make a framework for experiment. His experience in the Army had given him a confidence in his ability to adapt and improvise, to think sideways. Fos had no formal education beyond what was handed out to every child by the State of North Carolina in its local schools, but what being in the War and being in the Army had shown him was that people by and large tend naturally toward light, toward its source, as sunflowers do in a field.

People lean, either in their dreams or in their actions, toward that place where they suspect their inner lights are coming from. Whether they call it God or conscience or the manual of Army protocol, people sublime toward where their inner fire burns, and given enough fuel for thought and a level playing field to dream on, anyone can leave a fingerprint on the blank of history.

That's what Fos believed. Adapt and improvise -- he'd read his Darwin, he was a fan of H. Wells, and he spent most his time that first year after the Armistice inventing ways of showing people properties of light, how things that they believed were hidden in the natural world could be revealed in unexpected ways. Some of the methods he devised were easy science and mere theater -- but he got a kick from holding people spellbound. He rigged his truck with tricks he'd picked up, making showy things like Roman candles, fireworks, and pinwheels, and drove from town to town through the muddy rural landscape of the Smoky Mountains outside Knoxville on his days off, like a one-man circus, picking up a free meal now and then, sometimes even pulling in a dime or two.

That first year he worked straight through the summer, running the business single-handed when Flash took off to New York City and Niagara Falls with a grass widow from Chattanooga he was hoping not to have to marry. By the end of Fos's second summer in Tennessee he had earned two weeks' vacation and he knew where he wanted most to spend it. Back on the shining shore where he'd experienced his first miracle of light. Back home on the Banks. Fos's theory -- the one he hoped to be able to develop into a serious research paper, maybe even get it published in a scientific journal -- was that creatures who produce their own light don't emit light randomly.

Random light emission in, say, a creature like a firefly wouldn't make a particle of sense in Fos's view. He had studied them, the fireflies, keeping them in jars and letting them fly around his rented room. He kept charts and tables of their rates of radiance. He noted their responses to various controlled conditions.

He ended up with inconclusive data and gallons of dead bugs but the evidence suggested moonshine was a factor. Fluctuations in celestial lumens. When the moon was waxing, full, or gibbous, the fireflies emitted light more frequently and for longer periods than when the sky was cloudy or the moon was new, and Fos's theory was that these two facts must constitute a cause-and-effect relationship.

If they did, then the same cause-and-effect might exist between celestial lights and other bioluminescences, between starlight and other light-emitting creatures, between moonlight and the radiance that emanates from breaking surf. Back home on the Banks was the place to test this theory with photographs and observations, Fos believed -- and the Perseid meteor shower, peaking as it did, like clockwork, every summer near August 12, was the perfect time.

Fos's Farmer's Almanac of told him that the moon would be waxing through those first two weeks of August, getting full on Thursday morning the 18th -- nocturnal celestial conditions which couldn't be more beneficial for conducting his experiments. Not only would there be more lights in the sky as the earth clocked through the arc of cosmic dust in the constellation Perseus, but Sister Moon, our best and closest nightlight, would be unveiling more of her pale face, increasing her surface of reflection, every evening on the very nights the stars in Perseus would be showering down.

On the darkest night in August, the night of the new moon, Fos packed his tent and camp bed, Army mess kit, tripod, and his box and pinhole cameras, canisters of water, and some tins of food into the back of the Ford truck, checked and rechecked his equipment, and sipped coffee while he watched the sky and timed the dawn against the Almanac to verify its accuracy.

Sure enough the sun rose as predicted from the east on the dot at 5: Fos went back up to his rented room, shaved and packed his razor, and put on a clean shirt, smoothed the thin white bedspread one last time on his bachelor's bed, closed the door behind him and went downstairs to the aroma of baked bread coming from the bakery. Flash was waiting for him by the truck, in a shirt without a collar, cup of coffee in one hand, freshly baked Knoxville cruller in the other.

The morning sky had clouded over. It was their standard greeting. Came to see you off, Flash said. Uncharacteristically for the fashion of the time, neither of them wore a hat. Flash because he claimed it made it easier to kiss a woman, and Fos because he didn't like to shade his eyes.

Weather comin, Flash prognosticated. An' don't we know too well what that'll mean. Fos pressed his lips together. Fos wiped a teardrop from his eye. Mud without the poetry, Flash observed. It was a reference to their war experience. Fos had once come into their bunker from an open gun emplacement wearing mud up to his shoulders and said, Every other man you meet here thinks he is a poet and Flash had answered, Poetry and mud. That's what Thomas Jefferson swore all men are made of. Other half of mud. Maybe I'll outrun it, Fos now told him. Flash contained a laugh. Fos was a legendary hazard on the road.

He looked around too much. It starts comin down, Flash said, you won't make it past those mountains. Roads in Tennessee were ruts cut against sharecropper earth. Notorious for soil that wouldn't root. I'll be all right once I get to North Carolina. If you get to North Carolina. They were standing by the truck that way men do when they like each other, standing about a foot apart, shoulders back and chests thrown out so their hidden hearts could pound at one another.

Well you take care and don't hurry back on my account, Flash said. Fos opened the door and hauled himself into the driver's seat. You wait a day the rain will end, Flash told him. Can't wait, Fos said. Flash stepped back and cast his eyes along the bodywork.

Well you know I think you're a fool, Foster, for what you are about to do. I'm always a fool for what I do, Fos said. Flash raised his eyebrows and inclined his head toward what Fos had painted on the truck and chuckled, Ain't that the truth. So long, Fos said. Flash raised his chin. Drive careful now, he called. An' don't come back without a woman!

Fos shook his head. Flash spent as much time thinking about women as Fos did thinking about light. In his entire life Fos had probably never thought about a woman half as much as Flash thought about a different one each day. He backed the truck into the street and headed out of Knoxville, east, toward the Great Smokies, the Appalachian Trail, the state border and Ashville. He hoped to camp somewhere between Ashville and Winston-Salem that first night but the sky started to come down on him in sheets right after Gatlinburg and made the narrow Newfound Gap Road into a chuting river.

And even over mountains men insist on building roads as if they'd never heard the rumor Water runs downhill so Fos was stalled for most the afternoon leeward of Mount Collins waiting for the clouds to shred. Around three a bald sun made a stab at holding the spotlight through a thickening sky and Fos gained some miles but by five the thunder train was on the roll again in the nearing distance. Just before six o'clock coming down the Gap beside the Oconaluftee River near the Blue Ridge north of Cherokee Fos's headlamps highlighted a beached Model-T stuck like a hog in mud, angled something awful, like tipsy freight balanced on a catapult.

Bent against its glistening frame and seeming to be strapped to it like prayer to fate were two rain-drenched figures, pushing with all the visible effect of gravity on hills of granite. Fos pulled the truck in front of them and got out to help. The wind was something terrible. I got some rope with me in the truck -- he shouted. The man that he was yelling at had his face turned from him, from the wind, but Fos assessed he was of ample size, broad-shouldered, massive muscled, and with hands like hams.

I think -- if we can rock her -- we can rock her front wheels loose, the big man shouted -- if you go round t'other side an' push together with my wife -- Fos took his glasses off and folded them inside his pocket and went around the tilted Ford and took up a position on the right side of the chassis on an axis to the stronger man, behind the narrow figure of a woman with black hair dripping down the pale dress clinging to her spine and bony hips. She didn't turn around to look at him at all as Fos steadied his balance and shouldered to the job.

On a signal from the other man, they all three threw their bodies into it and the car rocked forward. Once more they gave a heave and Fos's head and shoulders carried forward in exertion to within an inch of the woman's back and he could smell her. Blinking in the rain he saw her bones smooth as horn beneath the fabric of her dress where it clung flat as oil on water to her form, he saw the flat spades of her scapulae and her ropy spine rising from the meagre compass of her unspanned hips toward the frail width of her slender shoulders.

Beneath her hair she had the longest whitest neck that he had ever seen. He could have cracked her like a chicken bone. Not once did she turn her face toward him, even after all their effort righted the car back onto the rutted road. Fos let the Model-T precede him down the treacherous pass and as the Ford turned off the gutted route at the road for Cherokee the last image he retained of her was her pale profile against the darkness in his lamp lights, her elegant neck arching like a fisher's rod hooked by an insatiable hunger into its ultimate submission.

That night he camped under a squally sky in a windswept field ten miles on the Tennessee side of Ashville and harried the odds over in his mind of how many nights he'd have to sacrifice to weather if the rain kept up. Or worse, if there was cloud cover over the Banks during the meteor shower. The rain had bogged his progress and dampened his initial hopes. He was restless and preoccupied and nothing that he touched felt dry. He lit a candle and watched the shadows on the tent and listened to the rain against the canvas.

Evidence of Things Unseen

He ate a cold meal of hash and beans directly from their tins, then he lay down on the camp bed under a thin blanket that smelled of damp and thought about the stars behind the clouds. So when I do gush, I mean it. Evidence of Things Unseen covers the range of historical events from one great war to the next through the lives of Ray and Opal. More than an examination of America during the interwar years, this is a novel about death, love, and, above all, the search for a meaning to illuminate our lives.

Wiggins's writing is luminous, covering everything from the hardscrabble quotidian to the prayerfully poetic. This has all the heart, mind and soul of a great novel, and like all such works, lights up the dark corners of all our oh-too-human hearts.

Jun 16, J. My distaste for this book can be understood by a sentence very early on in this novel: Further, this is very early in the book where the main character, Fos, is described as not being interested in girls, like his partner is, and yet the first woman we meet, a married woman helping her husband to push out a stuck car is gawked at like a 12 year old in front of their first breasts, and the second woman we meet he stares at likewise, and then is almost immediately having sex with.

Wiggins is a powerful writer much of the time, but so much of this book felt like too much piling on, too beholden to its research which, I must add, is great and super interesting and not enough concerned with rendering the world through the eyes of its characters. If you like poetic sounding language, and don't mind when it spirals out of control completely, this is for you, but if you like poetic language that is used for a purpose, that enriches the text--maybe hit up Annie Proulx or Lee K Abbott.

Apr 10, Angie Palau rated it it was amazing Shelves: I thought this book was spectacularly well-written, with gorgeous language and very clever use of mathematical and scientific language to create romantic descriptions. There were several very obvious "themes" woven throughout, which I found enjoyable, but I acknowledge that other reviews thought they were overdone or contrived. I loved them and found the use of "Light" and "Radiance" throughout to be very interesting. I also thought hanging elements of the story on a "Moby Dick" frame was cool I thought this book was spectacularly well-written, with gorgeous language and very clever use of mathematical and scientific language to create romantic descriptions.

See a Problem?

To me, the distinct themes and the semi-secret references to "Moby Dick" reinforced the idea of things unseen The characters were very interesting, if tragically flawed, and I have found myself thinking about the story constantly. That is a key indicator for me of a "special" book. If it feels forgettable, it is.

This one, for me, is not. Also very compelling for me was the setting - Knoxville and Oak Ridge - places I know well and that the author clearly knows well. This story was written from the inside and had the ring of truth. I've already recommended it to several family members and consider it a keeper Aug 22, Pamela rated it did not like it. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. When my opinion is so absolutely opposite of the majority of the readers of a book, I feel a bit more than just the star-rating is necessary.

In this case, it's not difficult to explain why I have the opinion I do. I was very excited when I started this book. Since I was born in the 50s, the development of The Bomb , has always interested me. That it's written by a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist seemed to be just icing on the cake. Imagine my surprise when the cake turned out to be a cow patty. In no particular order, here are a few of the things that irked me to no end. The Name Game Each time I read a character's name or another one was introduced, I found myself cringing.

You know that annoying guy who talks too loud at parties, who laughs too loud while making moronic observations that he finds incredibly clever?

Know how when you don't laugh, he announces that you just don't get him? Know the frustration that--because you were raised to be polite--you can't bring yourself to tell him that you do get him--that you get he's an idiot? That's something along the lines of how I feel about Wiggins' little name game.

There's Fos - Get it? Do you get it? Ray Foster real name of Fos - Like a ray of light. Bet you didn't get that, did you?

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Flash - Again like light but this time also like photography! Are you sure you are getting the light motif? Opal - A semi-precious stone that's pale and seems to glow. Ramona de la Luz - And here's light in another language! Pearl - Very similar to Opal. The Main Characters Even though I managed to grit my teeth and get past the heavy-handed naming, I could not get past the basic disgust I felt for the three main characters.

They weren't too bad at first, a bit two dimensional and inane, but bearable.

But then came the Flash and Lally affair. Here's a grown man messing around with a young girl--a girl who was at the most 13 or 14 years old. A grown man who got her pregnant. A grown man who didn't take her to the hospital but rather let her bleed out in his car because of a botched abortion.

And what do Flash's two friends do? They support him as much as they can. Never mind about the girl. She is never mentioned again. Never mind that he's a worthless piece of crap. He's their friend, and the reader is supposed to buy into the premise that Flash's conviction was just brought about because the DA is Flash's brother and jealous. The reader is supposed to feel oh-so-sorry for Flash and Fos and Opal. Well, this reader didn't! One of the worst aspects of this part of the story is that I was so disgusted with Flash and the Fosters that I found myself coming down on the side of the KKK when they tore up the studio.

What nice people they were, what good parents. I mean Fos even went so far as to half-heartedly ask one of the neighbors if she would take care of Lightfoot should something happen. When she said she couldn't, Fos didn't press the issue or even bother to ask anyone else. It's only his son. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to interrupt his plans. He overdoses himself and Opal with morphine on the night before Lightfoot's birthday.

What a joy for a little boy to wake up on his birthday and find his parents dead. And since Fos had made no plans whatsoever for Lightfoot so the authorities have no choice but to cart him off to an orphanage. There's no need to go into the rest of the story as there's not all that much story there--and I'm pretty disgusted with even thinking about Flash.

Style As if the characters and names weren't bad enough, there was Wiggins' style on top of it all. I never could figure out if it was because she flat out wanted to annoy her readers or if she was just being pretentious. Single paragraphs run over several pages. Sentences run on forever and ever and ever and ever. Quotation marks do not exist. Dialog is mixed in with thoughts so you have to puzzle out who said what, who thought what, and who didn't say anything at all.

I didn't care for anything but getting through this mess. It had come down to me against Wiggins, and I wasn't going to let her win. I'm reminded of a restaurant in France my husband and some of his colleagues went to several years ago. The restaurant had the reputation for being one of the best in the world--and the Michelin stars to back it up.

After all their anticipation, they were terribly disappointed. It was typical whole lot of nothing on big white plate cuisine, and if that weren't bad enough, the specialty of the house was raw pigeon. Marianne Wiggins' Evidence of Things Unseen is a whole lot of nothing, and what is there is as unappetizing as raw pigeon. Apparently Wiggins couldn't be bothered to do anything as mundane as glance at a map. Fos and Opal lived on the Clinch River , not the Tennessee. View all 4 comments.

Sep 23, Janna rated it it was amazing. This is a touching story of the tender love between Fos and Opal. Fos is a man who has always been fascinated by things that glow He accidentally finds Opal when his truck breaks down while he is in NC to see the meteor showers. Opal is quite the repairman so she has him on the road again quickly The author, Marianne Wiggins, deserves a Pulitzer Prize for this novel. It is a riveting story of America before an This is a touching story of the tender love between Fos and Opal.

It is a riveting story of America before and during the Atomic Age. But, before that they travel the country taking X-Ray pictures at County Fairs. They don't do this for medical reasons Everyone is thrilled to get to see the bones inside their skin! And, willing to pay money for this treat!!

This book flows like poetry. The descriptions and feelings of the characters stayed with me long after I finished this book. One particular scene that showed love and tenderness at it's deepest level was the scene of Fos bathing Opal. It wasn't the sexuality of it that touched me. Indeed it wasn't really sexual But the tender, gentle, amazing love portrayed 'blew me out of the water! Jan 02, Tracey rated it it was amazing. I read it as slowly as I possibly could so as to savor it. Dec 30, Rrshively rated it liked it.

This book did not pass my "40 page" rule that I should really be into it after 40 pages. However, I was reading it for a face-to-face book club and was determined to finish. The further I got into it, the more I liked it. By the time I reached the last third of the book, I was reading it avidly. This book brings up many issues for thought and discussion. It has several themes running through it such as the theme of light. I appreciated the author's clever ways of putting things.

I would agree th This book did not pass my "40 page" rule that I should really be into it after 40 pages. I would agree that it is a poetic novel. One interesting tactic the author used was to use a homonym for the word that would usually make sense i. Fishin' and fission, tolled and told. However, the use of the homonym made everything make more sense. Aside from this novel being a little difficult to get into, my main complaint is the lack of quotation marks.

This seems to be a trend for several contemporary novelists. Quotation marks are not there to make like difficult for English students or to hinder the creativity of novelists. They are there to make reading clear and easy for the reader. Especially in a novel that has depth and needs ones wits to fully appreciate, quotation marks are almost necessary.

One of the difficulties in getting into the novel in the first place was the backing up and re-reading to make sure I knew if words were spoken or just part of the description and deciding who was the speaker. I have always been a good reader and could understand difficult novels, so I think the lack of punctuation made me read as a slower, less intelligent reader.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes an interesting story finally and who likes difficult and profound things to think about. This is also great for someone who likes the clever use of words to express scenes and ideas. May 25, meg rated it it was amazing Shelves: Life is a series of collisions, for fucksake. It's not a narrative experience.

My advice to you is to stop trying to make it one. View all 5 comments. Apr 05, Renee Klang rated it it was amazing. This was one of the most beautifully written books i have ever read. Wiggins mingles physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy in this marvelous love story between two unique characters. Couldn't decide between 4 or 5 stars because of the ending and something that Flash does that seemed hard to believe. However, because I couldn't stop reading it and enjoyed the prose so much I decided to give it five.

Sep 09, Laurel rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Marianne Wiggins for vice president!!!! I love this book I am completely enamored by Marianne Wiggins' writing. The story of Fos and Opal and Flash and Lightfoot is beautiful and tragic and fascinating. I'm even contemplating going back to Moby Dick and actually reading it this time, as I failed to do so junior year of high school. Oct 10, Kathleen Nightingale rated it did not like it Recommends it for: From the first page to the last page I forced myself through the experience. This book was a book club suggestion so I was bound bent and determined to finish the darn thing.

Evidence of Things Unseen - Wikipedia

I never did get a handle on the characters or feel invested in them. The language though was amazing. I don't believe I have ever felt so bored with a book. Jul 19, Valerie rated it really liked it. A wonderful book about love--of wife, husband, friend, child, life. Jan 04, Kate rated it it was amazing.

One of my all-time favorite books: Jan 08, Annisa Anggiana rated it it was amazing Shelves: I know that pebble cannot be thrown into the ocean without distrubing every drop of water in the sea. I know that every life is inextricably mixed and woven with every other life. I know that every influence, conscious and unconscious, acts and reacts on every living organism, and that no one can fix the blame. I know that all life is a series of infinite chances, which sometimes result one way and sometimes another.

I have not the infinite wisdom that can fathom it, neither has any other human brain. But I do know that in back of it is a power that made it, that power alone can tell, and if there is no power, then it is an infinite chance which man cannot solve. Udah lama juga yah? Buku ini judulnya eye catching , waktu beli saya kira ada unsur2 misterinya gitu.

Ternyata setelah dibaca meleset banget dugaan saya. Dibaca pelan2 dan seksama baru mudeng. Lama-lama untungnya bahasanya me-ringan atau ntah ceritanya tambah rame karena muncul tokoh Opal. Eh dari awal ya. Mulanya buku ini bercerita tentang Ray Foster alias Fos, seorang pemuda yang sangat menaruh minat pada science. Khususnya cahaya2 yang secara natural terdapat di alam. Phosphorenscence, kunang-kunang, bintang jatuh, hati ikan yang dapat menjadi tinta yang menyala dalam gelap, cahaya dari unsur radioaktif, x-ray, you name it. Fos sangat tertarik pada hal tersebut.

Selamat dari perang dunia pertama, Fos diajak teman seperjuangannya Flash untuk membuat sebuah studio foto. Fos menyambut baik ide itu karena dekat dengan minatnya pada cahaya alami. Dalam waktu-waktu tertentu Fos selalu bepergian untuk melihat peristiwa bintang jatuh. Dalam suatu kesempatan, nasib membawanya untuk terdampar di rumah seorang glassblower ini kurang lebih artinya pengrajin kaca kali ya, orang yang bikin hiasan kayak vas atau yang cth lainnya dari bahan kaca. Dari bayangan terbalik yang ia lihat di kaca leleh yang sedang ditiup Fos pertama kali melihat Opal.

Tidak seperti Flash yang bermental Don Juan. Fos ini bisa dibilang sangat polos dan sama sekali kurang berminat mencari pasangan. Namun di saat itu ada sesuatu dalam diri Opal yang membuatnya tertarik. Fos pun mengajak Opal ikut serta dalam acara berburu bintang jatuhnya.

Di malam yang romantis itu Fos yakin bahwa ia dan Opal meant to be each other. Opal yang merasakan hal yang sama pun nekat menerima. Tanpa persiapan heboh2 mereka pun menikah dengan restu ayahnya Opal, sang glassblower. Fos lalu membawa serta Opal pulang ke Knoxville tempat ia hidup dari studio fotonya dan Flash. Opal boleh dibilang adalah nyawa dari cerita ini menurut saya loh. Tipe perempuan yang ngga ribet, secara alami cerdas dan memang sepertinya diciptakan untuk memahami Fos yang kadang2 keterlaluan polosnya.

Untuk beberapa waktu, mereka bertiga, Fos, Opal dan Flash menghabiskan berbagai pengalaman yang cukup menyenangkan bersama. The idea of two such strangely unremarkable yet lovable people could have found and met each other reaffirmed his waning faith in anything remotely optimistic about mankind and seemed to be a more convincing proof than all the gospel shit flown from the pulpits of Knox County that life could, in fact, distribute happy endings.

Mereka berdua harus tercerabut dari zona amannya dan terpaksa hidup di desa dengan bertani. Fos merasa hidup telah berbuat licik padanya. Kenyataan bahwa ia tidak mengira Flash akan melakukan yang ia lakukan membuat Fos merasa tertipu oleh sahabatnya tersebut. How much you can know about a thing, a person. If you can know anything at all.

Sebagai akibatnya antara Fos dan Opal tercipta jarak yang ditandai dengan hening. Ditambah dengan Opal yang merasa kecewa kepada dirinya sendiri yang tidak kunjung mengandung. Roda nasib bergerak, ketika mereka mendengar berita bahwa Ayah Opal meninggal dunia, mereka pun segera kembali ke kampung halaman Opal. Disana mereka bertemu dengan keluarga pengelana yang memiliki banyak anak, sang istri tampak akan melahirkan.

Mereka beristirahat sejenak di rumah Ayah Opal yang telah kosong. Pasangan itu pun mengizinkannya dan memutuskan menginap di hotel. Ketika kembali ke rumah itu mereka menemukan seorang bayi baru lahir yang memang dengan sengaja ditinggalkan disana. Fos dan Opal saling berpandangan, bayi itu adalah hadiah yang dibawakan nasib untuk mereka. Lalu sebuah proyek rahasia dari pemerintah membutuhkan keahlian Fos dalam bidang fotografi.

Ia pun masuk ke dalam proyek itu, membawa serta Opal dan LightFoot ke sebuah perumahan khusus untuk para pekerja proyek.

Dari sana cerita bergulir ke arah yang membuat kita bertanya-tanya apakah memang benar kita sebagai manusia tidak punya kendali sama sekali akan kemana hidup akan membawa kita. Apa yang penting dan apa yang tidak penting dalam hidup. Dan apa memang benar cinta sejati itu ada. Pada akhirnya saya menyukai bahasa Marianne Wiggins. Terbukti dari quotes2 di bawah yang ngga bisa ngga saya masukin dalam review ini. Lima bintang untuk kisah cinta Fos dan Opal yang amat sangat bikin ngiri.

Love exists beyond fixed limits. Beyond what you can see or count. To think of life as a foolproof is a fallacy of fools, he thought. And I fell in love with her. It was something that I wanted-love-not because it was expected of me, but because I found it out my self-that happiness of wanting to be with that other person. The future will always finds you.

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