‘Ensemble’ author pens unforgettable sophomore novel

The term “scientific fiction,” a subtle adjustment to science fiction, is often used to describe weighty literary novels about cutting-edge technologies and big ideas, and it’s an apt way to describe Aja Gabel’s riveting second novel, “Lightbreakers.” Its trafficking in theoretical and experimental physics comes in service of a moving story about art, time, loss and the possibility of love.

The book’s central couple, Maya and Noah, have been married for three years, and Maya is starting to have misgivings. Noah is a scientist whose “unprovable faith” in the role of quantum physics in producing human consciousness has harmed his professional reputation. Maya is an artist who believes “the very idea of objective beauty (is) suspect.” Their opposites-attract relationship is further complicated by Noah’s lingering grief for Serena, his deceased daughter from a previous relationship. The story unfolds in chapters that, at first, alternate between Maya’s and Noah’s perspectives. A third character’s voice joins the chorus later on.

Things first get interesting when Noah is summoned to a meeting with eccentric billionaire Klein Michaels at his mansion in the Hollywood Hills. Michaels has happened to read Noah’s widely reviled paper about consciousness and physics. Egotistical billionaires and their outlandish, eschatological pet projects make for easy literary targets, and Michaels is no different. He offers Noah a high-paying job working on the secretive Janus Project at a research laboratory in Marfa, Texas, and sets up Maya with a gig at a local art gallery.

In Texas, Maya begins to grow jealous of Noah’s ex, Eileen, Serena’s mother. She also starts reminiscing about her own former lover, Ren, who, like herself, has one American parent and one Japanese and, unlike herself, has built a successful career as an artist. Maya also gets attacked by a pronghorn.

Early on, we get a long and complicated information dump about Project Janus that warmed my nerdy sci-fi heart. Noah discovers Michaels has “hired him to arrange the unruly principles of quantum mechanics into mathematical models” and that their work will use “nanoparticles to record the exact neural activity of a memory and then replay it in a person’s brain.” Got that?

Michaels is creating sensory deprivation “time baths” that allow people to relive their memories: “Inside the time bath, a person would not only reexperience the memory, but would fold space and time to inhabit that past consciousness. This part was Episodic Folding.” And it turns out that Noah’s job is less theoretical than he had been led to believe: “He hadn’t been brought here to make mathematical sense of the Janus Project. He had been chosen. He would be the lab rat.” In other words, he’s going to time-travel. And we’re still in the first act.

Gabel’s debut, “The Ensemble” (2018), was met with rapturous praise and a well-deserved place on what seemed like every summer reading list. It was a tough act to follow, but “Lightbreakers” is a marvel.

The descriptions of Noah’s experience in the “folds” are mesmerizing: “For a brief moment he can’t breathe. His throat is full of lead. Suffocation explodes over his body; he’s sure he is dying — how long will it be this painful? Something bends like a snake writhing, the stem of a flower being snapped between two fingers, a seizure in time, and he’s in the space between alive and dead, he is sure.” The stakes are as high as they can be, considering that he’s being exposed to radiation and “there was a small but nonzero possibility that his brain would be forever altered in coming back, but in what way, no one knew.”

The intense stress of Noah’s work causes a rift with Maya, who leaves for Tokyo to visit her parents and reunite with Ren. Meanwhile, Eileen makes her way to Marfa only to find that Noah’s living quarters are oddly familiar.

Michaels often sounds like a prototypical delusional billionaire, a pseudo-visionary out to cheat death once and for all. “We’re on the brink, I think, of effecting causal change,” he claims. “Imagine what we could do to prevent climate change, genocides, dictatorships.” Like me, you might not trust his stated righteous intentions.

Gabel adds wrinkle after wrinkle to keep things exciting. With a deft hand, she allows several compelling mysteries to grow in intensity. We need to know what Michaels really wants and if his outlandish plans will succeed. A mysterious photograph and business card raise questions about a previous Janus Project employee. And the pronghorns around the facility are “dying in some horrific way that no one quite understands.”

Like all great storytellers, Gabel understands that, even when exploring profound ideas, it’s people we care about most. The most urgent questions in this novel sit close to the heart. Is Noah going to be OK? What will his desire to see his daughter cost him and Eileen? Will Maya find the love she deserves? In the end, it’s these human drives that make “Lightbreakers” so propulsive and unforgettable.