This intriguingly dark collection of short stories by Piatigorsky (Jellyfish Have Eyes, 2015, etc.) considers the possibility of a transitional stage between life and death.

“I cannot fathom my own death,” writes scientist Piatigorsky, “however, the mind and imagination can…indulge in fantasies…that challenge our concepts of death and being human.” This collection of six short stories does exactly that. The first, “Notes Going Underground,” is written from the perspective of a research scientist who finds he has been given a “grace period” between life and death to “size up” his life before burial. In “My Funeral,” a biomedical scientist discovers that once dead, he continues to feel alive and attends his own memorial service. “Waking up Dead” continues in a similar vein with a protagonist who doesn’t realize he is dead and continues his life as usual. The imagination-stretching “Death by Drowning” is about a daughter who connects with an absent father who has been jailed for misusing government funds when researching jellyfish, only for him to die in a bizarre manner. “Mr. Blok” ponders the state of dying after the protagonist falls into a ditch, and “What’s Alive” takes the form of an essay examining the gray area between life and death. The writing is playfully morbid. In “Mr. Blok” an unnerving pleasure arises from the process of dying: “Lying on his back in the mud, soft and warm, with his eyes closed, in the marvelous quietness made him feel almost grateful and glad. How amazingly simple it is to be dead.” Piatigorsky’s prose is laconic yet elegant—always keen to confront the reader with probing questions: “Is a virus dead? Is the peeling bark of a eucalyptus tree alive?” The result is a deeply thought-provoking collection that presents an unflinching examination of a taboo subject. The first three offerings read as a reworking of the same story, each about a scientist negotiating the partition between life and death. Still, despite blurring into one another, these stories capture various aspects of the same phenomena. Accompanied by suitably macabre illustrations by Carrillo, this book is an intriguing read.

Penetrating, inventive writing that challenges perceptions of what lies beyond the veil.

A scientist seeks out the physical building blocks of thought in this speculative novel.

Roger Resin has wanted to make his mark on the world of science ever since he was a biology major at Yale. His greatest source of inspiration is his great-great-grandfather Ricardo Sztein, a scientist who completed revolutionary research on the visionary abilities of jellyfish—and also ended up in prison for misspending government funds. As Roger makes his way through his own scientific career, he doesn’t have to wonder what his relative would do in any situation because, through some remarkable fluke of time and space, Ricardo can appear to the protagonist at any moment and offer his advice. For Roger, Ricardo is a friend, defender, and mentor; for Ricardo, Roger represents a chance to redeem his tarnished legacy. While Roger spends his days pursuing what he calls “the useful mundane”—practical science related to improving health—he daydreams about bigger mysteries, like the source of imagination: “Imagination comes from brains, a living tissue, and it must be defined by our genes—human genes—yours and mine! How does that work? How do genes, or how does chemistry, or whatever, create imagination?” As Roger begins his search for the eponymous thought-particles, can his partnership with his spectral ancestor hold, or will the pressure snap their collaboration? Piatigorsky’s prose is measured and clear, deftly satirizing certain real-world trends (including a mysterious pandemic that strikes when Roger is middle-aged): “Social media exploded with nonsense, including a theory that it was an attack by aliens from another planet. Politicians were in heaven. Any stupidity they uttered found a receptive audience. Imagine the playground where any argument or idea, positive or negative, was fair game. Do that, or don’t do it; try this, or don’t try it.” But the narration is slightly flat, and readers will feel as though they are being told Roger’s story rather than seeing it dramatized. This makes for a slightly less emotionally engaging experience. Still, the book grapples with captivating themes like the weight of influence, the validity of unorthodox research, and the frontiers where biology and imagination meet.

An intriguing but sometimes stiff ideas-driven tale of a haunted scientist.

Centuries in the future, a science-minded youth enters the research field bearing the standards of her grandfather and great-great-great-grandfather, two maverick scientists who experienced career disgrace over their unorthodox theories.

With this volume, Piatigorsky concludes his SF trilogy that began with Jellyfish Have Eyes (2015) and Roger’s Thought Particles (2021). This installment’s setting is about 250 years in the future. Young Regina Resin and her worldview are affected less by her mundane mom and dad than by Roger, her 90-year-old grandfather. A retired scientist, Roger proposed the existence of human thoughts—or any thoughts, really—as actual physical phenomena, at least on a quantum scale. He envisioned them as tiny, indivisible “particles,” or wavelets, that may even be “infectious” and affect others without direct communication. This notion left Grandpa branded as something of a kook, not unlike his own ancestor Ricardo Sztein, who was jailed over misappropriation of funds when he tried to prove that jellyfish possessed advanced visual sensory networks and could actually see the temporal processes of evolution. Regina tries to coax Roger out of his isolation to talk to a journalist about an infamous incident he survived, “the Obliteration”—an inadequately explained, deadly explosion 30 years prior that destroyed the elaborate Bethesda, Maryland, research complex where he (and long before him, Ricardo) had laboratories. The tragedy, whether intentional terrorism or not, was said to have left a 9/11–type wound on society. But entering the public eye again, however slightly, does Roger no good. Regina decides to attend Caltech and study the basic-science field, specializing in invertebrate brains—but actually championing the cause of imagination in scientific endeavors as a powerful force. Secretly, she hopes to vindicate the long-buried work of Ricardo and her Grandpa.

Piatigorsky should know a thing or two about the inner lives of scientists, having worked for decades as a molecular biologist at the National Institutes of Health before retiring to write memoirs and fiction. In this trilogy, he essentially leapfrogs across generations to highlight three congenitally deep and sensitive thinkers in one family. Will Regina’s against-the-grain ideas suffer derision and marginalization, as those of her ancestors did? This volume is more of a coda/epilogue to the previous two installments, heavier on philosophizing than strong conclusions and plot twists (the Obliteration mystery winds up a multiple-choice solution at best). In this narrowly focused tale, readers get no gee-whiz SF visions of the future two centuries hence other than a general sense of malaise from a world that has devalued and politicized science, or at least the author’s concept of what the discipline should be. Dogmatists will have bones to gnaw over Piatigorsky’s/Regina’s position that outlier ideas merit value based on their sheer imagination, which perhaps constitutes a type of alt-facts reality, not just the usual constraint that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. These are paradigm-bending proposals on a level exemplified in the nonnarrative novels of Daniel Quinn and the nonfiction of Fritjof Capra. But the easy-to-read (and YA-friendly) voice of Regina barely scratches the surface of her theory’s profound implications.        

A slim but inventive science parable that challenges conventional views of reality.

In Piatigorsky’s novel, a journalist is determined to write an honest biography of her best friend—a project that proves to be a profound philosophical and metaphysical challenge.

Devra Denniston is a very successful (and very private) scientist and academic, who, as the story opens, is at her 75th birthday party. Her best friend, journalist Alison Mellows, wants to write Devra’s biography, which she proposes as a gift. Devra resists strenuously at first, but later she falls mysteriously ill with a malady whose severity fluctuates dangerously. Alison (whom Devra calls “Angela”) later discovers a cache of her friend’s writings. Devra is not only a respected scientist but a talented wordsmith, and the bulk of the book consists of selections of Devra’s writings, which serve as fodder for Alison’s research into her subject. Some are clearly fictional tales, others are transcriptions of dreams, and still others lie in a tantalizing gray area. Devra may, in fact, be a fabulist of the first order, and neither Alison nor the reader ever really knows the truth. The key term here is uncertain—a term that permeates everything. Devra never warmed to her parents, for example, which leads to questions: Did her father abuse her? Was she, in fact, adopted? Did she, a woman who never married, have a child whom she surrendered for adoption? Eventually, Alison is encouraged to write and publish her long-planned biography, and in a final, sardonic twist, the initially poorly selling book later becomes a bestseller for the wrong reasons.

Readers may wonder if the novel is intended as an honest exploration of its themes, or if it’s an elaborate put-on. Its main theme seems to hinge on the distinction, as it explores the boundaries between reality and imagination; Devra has been struggling with such duality all her life. Certainty and uncertainty also play a large part in the narrative—so much so that Alison eventually opts for uncertainty, because it leaves open possibilities that the other option closes off: “Uncertainty, like hope, leaves the door open for a miracle to slip through”—a fair point, and one of the easier ones to grasp. However, the book’s discussion of reality and imagination brings to mind familiar conundrums, such as the old Taoist story in which Zhuang Zhou dreams of being a butterfly and then wonders if he’s actually a butterfly dreaming of being a man. There are really only two characters in the story—“Angela” and Devra; later, the situation changes, and “Angela” can be Alison again. These symbolic nudges surface again and again, and one starts to wonder how close these “blood sisters” really are. There are a couple of points when it seems as if “Angela” and Devra have switched places in the narrative. In any other book, one might pass it off as a simple slip-up, but such is the atmosphere of deception and gaslighting in this story that readers can’t truly be sure; perhaps they are all part of the joke.

A book whose brevity belies its profound philosophical teasing.

The stories in this collection revolve around the love that characters crave, lost, or may never savor. 

In the titular tale, Leonard Leopold is a successful divorce lawyer. But as his 40th birthday approaches, he looks for a new direction in life, which may entail his obvious attraction to his secretary, Jennifer Hopkins. The L-word drives the stories in this book, and not always the romantic kind. For example, in “Carved Stone,” Jane Simonton has had trouble maintaining relationships since her father abandoned the family. But she ultimately develops a love for Inuit carvings that she gradually collects. The highlighted emotion is even a threat in the indelible, SF-flavored “Love Contraception.” It takes place on the planet Coddle after humanity’s extinction. But humans’ Thoughts have already become separate entities, “infecting” other planets. Love, entangled in those Thoughts, somehow proves dangerous to the cloudlets living on Coddle. Many characters share similarities, especially an appreciation of art, including Syd of “Immobilon” who, like Jane, collects Inuit sculptures. But others are delightfully surprising. In the case of “The Doctor Party,” Mr. Jones and his wife, Helen, throw a party with (mostly) physicians. But while he ogles his therapist, Dr. Kretchmer, Helen seems to have her eyes on someone, too. In the same unpredictable vein, Benjamin, in the final tale, “The Miracle of Estelle,” dreads visiting “annoying,” paralytic Estelle with his wife, Melinda. But he soon sees Estelle in another, brighter light. Piatigorsky’s (The Speed of Dark, 2018, etc.) persistent metaphors are sometimes too on-the-surface, particularly as story titles, like Leonard’s open office door representing his newfound openness. Regardless, the author’s breezy style offers frequent moments of insight: “But she loved that he needed her to be happy, and she saw his incessant self-doubts as endearing qualities.” Prefacing each engrossing tale are debut illustrator Carrillo’s black-and-white sketches, which resemble photographs from an album (complete with corners). A standout is “The Doctor Party”—an imperfectly framed snapshot of people awkwardly huddled with drinks.

Quiet but earnest tales with emotionally resonant characters.

Across 23 short stories, Piatigorsky explores how characters attempt to find meaning in their lives, often with other people’s help.

In the titular story, a perennially out-of-place divorce lawyer decides to take charge of his life and make a connection with someone. In “Carved Stone,” a woman takes refuge in her Inuit sculpture collection when genuine human connection escapes her. Literary magazine editor Sylvia battles her self-critical inner voice and decides whether to embark on editing her estranged father’s short story. A recurrent theme is the desire of characters to produce art; the collection opens with “Not for Everyone,” in which a husband asks his wife about the potential of his writing career: “Why do I spend all this time writing?” he asks. “There are so many books, stories, essays, poems, on and on. What’s the value of another?” At least part of the value of short stories, Piatigorsky’s tales seem to find, is in the act of processing the world through fiction, as when the writer Ernest Worthington is interviewed in “The Open Door” and describes how “everyone else’s stories became my book.” Later in the volume, the tales increasingly take a turn towards the surreal. “Mr. Pushkin” adopts the perspective of an English bulldog searching for meaning as a show dog. “Immobilon” describes a man who dies of the titular, paralytic plague,only to continue to observe the world around him post-cremation;the story “My Funeral” also features a consciousness continuing after death.

Piatigorsky presents readers with a carefully ordered collection. Over the course of these tales, key themes of art, aborted love, and anxiety appear early on, absurdist notes gradually emerge, and death becomes a clear theme only toward the end, as if to better cast a shadow over the scenes that came before. The collection closes on a short series of works about facing death, ending on “Notes Going Underground,” in which a man delivers his own eulogy, even though he’s “still partially alive and only partially dead”; the closing sentiment is one of acceptance. The execution of all these ideas is, as is natural with short story collections, successful to varying degrees, depending on the tale at hand. Although the technique of having fictional characters debate the merits of fiction is frequently compelling, it runs the risk of making characters feel less like people and more like representations of some grand theory of writing. At other points—as with “Love Contraception” and “The Ugly President”—fascinating ideas lose some of their intrigue, due to a heavy-handed moral or philosophical message. Some of the shorter stories are expertly self-contained, as with “Guilt,” which features a sucker-punch comedic twist, but many others—such as “Buddies,” about two high-school classmates nicknamed “Champ” and “Nerdie”—lack enough emotional development to warrant their inclusion. A stronger edit might have resulted in a set of sharper, more consistent tales, which would have allowed the author’s perspective to shine brighter.

An expansive collection that includes some true gems, despite inconsistent presentation.

A man from an illustrious family finds science to be the ultimate mode of aesthetic self-expression in this memoir.

Piatigorsky (Jellyfish Have Eyes, 2014, etc.), a biologist who had a distinguished career at the National Institutes of Health, tells of his extraordinarily rich but alienating family traditions and his search for independence outside them. His father, Gregor, was born into an impoverished Jewish family in Ukraine but became a world-renowned cellist, and his mother, Jacqueline, was an heiress to the Rothschild banking dynasty; after fleeing Europe during World War II, his parents and sister settled into a comfortable, fulfilling life in America, where he was born. But Piatigorsky’s boyhood memories are full of unease. Lacking musical talent, he was overshadowed by his father’s fame and was no more comfortable visiting his maternal grandparents’ palaces in France. He paints vivid scenes of glittering musicales with the most famous classical musicians and formal dinners with servants hovering everywhere in rooms decked with priceless paintings. But the lonely, slightly neurotic author “felt an outsider…as if looking through a window and tapping on the glass.” He embarked on a career as a biologist, studying at Harvard University and Caltech and finally settling at the NIH. Much of the book concerns his quirky but engrossing scientific research, which started with studies of sea urchins, moved on to “crystallins”—transparent proteins found in the eye—and eventually led to groundbreaking discoveries in “gene sharing,” the phenomenon of individual proteins performing radically different functions in different cells. Piatigorsky’s exposition of the science that he pursued is lucid and highly accessible to lay readers. He also pens a fine portrait of science as a human activity. His anecdotes are full of mundane screw-ups, from unlabeled samples to experiments that were ruined when a test tube broke. The work was sometimes distasteful and distressing; he was initially heartsick at having to kill mice for experiments, but he eventually became nonchalant about it—and he wondered what that said about his moral character. There’s deeper angst as well; crushed when colleagues ignored his presentation at a scientific conference, he realized that his “science was not up to par” and started wondering whether he really belonged in the field. But there are also moments of exhilaration when new theories pan out and hours of quiet engagement doing painstaking but satisfying lab work. Piatigorsky insists that science is “driven by passion, like art,” and his vibrant prose is full of entrancing appreciations of the artistry in science and nature, whether it be an elegantly constructed experiment or the “angelic white form” of a jellyfish. He makes a ringing case for science as a freely creative endeavor, untethered to practical ends and guided only by the curiosity of scientists. It’s a satisfying conclusion that brings his struggle to live up to his father’s music and the Rothschilds’ art collecting full circle.

An absorbing, luminous story of a son wrestling with his family’s legacy that highlights the imaginative and emotional dimensions of scientific discovery.