SCIENTIA EX MACHINA

Closen’s novel follows the lives of a physicist, an investment banker, and a priest who have an unusual connection.

In 2016, Ethan Awbrey is working on his doctorate in economics in Toronto, living with roommates in a house with an eerie basement. When Awbrey finds his dreams of becoming a researcher thwarted, he moves to London. Meanwhile, Harry Harewood begins working as a parish curate after completing divinity school; he moves into a spacious Toronto vicarage, where the basement gives him “a strange feeling.” He reads about Julian of Norwich’s visions to quell his doubt, as “His faith in God was not the strongest, but it was strong.” A few years later, physicist Dolours Byrne marries Edward, and they have a child. She grows increasingly disconnected from her professional and familial responsibilities, instead desperate to “prove the connections between all things in the world. Some hidden connection through the quantum world, or through particle interactions, something.” In 2025, she’s working on "the Machine"—designed to find this universal connectivity—in a Toronto basement when she hears "a sustained harmony" and a voice begins speaking to her. As the novel progresses, the reader learns “Dolours, Ethan, and Reverend Harry all lived in the house at various times, and were now drawn back by some mysterious voice.” As the characters grapple with their raisons d’être, be it economics, religion, or science, they move through the world mechanically, and Closen’s accounts of the daily routines of their lives, described at length, lack sufficient texture to hook the reader. For instance, when asked to choose his favorite restaurant before leaving Calgary, Ethan picks a “straightforward café” with “straightforward food.” The deus ex machina of the title is an intriguing device. However, when the narrative glosses over the Machine’s revelations, it undercuts whatever interest the reader may have.

An introspective, slow-paced novel that struggles to expand on its concept or deepen its characters’ motivations.