THE LAWS OF INVISIBLE THINGS

A somber and moving fiction debut by Huyler (The Blood of Strangers: Stories from Emergency Medicine, 1999), who describes a young physician trying to trace the origins of a mysterious new disease.

At 35, Michael Grant is trying to start a new life. Fresh out of medical school, residency, and a bad marriage, Mike has moved to a small city in North Carolina and joined a local practice. His partner, Ronald Gass, is experienced, patient, and somewhat cynical—a good mentor for a young practitioner. But Gass’s wife died a few months after Mike arrived, and her grieving husband has since left nearly all of the work in Mike’s hands. A while ago, Mike treated an eight-month-old baby, a girl who died of meningitis, possibly because he had not prescribed antibiotics before the diagnosis was in. Although he followed correct procedures, Mike was also careless, overlooking certain lab reports, and feels secretly guilty about the case. As a result, he agrees to treat Jonas, the dead child’s father, for free when he comes in complaining of fatigue and hallucinations. During the examination, Mike notices strange discolorations on the inside of Jonas’s mouth, white spiral markings that correspond to no known disease, and discovers that his blood count is dangerously low. Tests for AIDS are negative, and nothing in the standard medical literature describes Jonas’s condition. Mike becomes excited, thinking that he may have discovered a new disease, only to be stymied when Jonas dies in a trailer fire a few days later. Though an autopsy confirms Mike’s suspicions that he was venturing into uncharted waters, with the patient gone there is nothing for him to work on—until he starts to suffer the same symptoms. But Gass can’t see the spiral discolorations on the back of Mike s throat. Has he really caught the disease (whatever it may be)? Or is he just losing his marbles?

A genuinely eerie and suspenseful tale, narrated in a nicely understated tone that perfectly fits the characters and situations.