DISSOLVE

A work of speculative fiction centered on some highly unusual gemstones.

In a shipping warehouse on an unnamed, remote tropical island in the Indian Ocean,at a vaguely defined time of political turmoil,a gem and fossil dealer named Craag reveals a fabulous discovery to his colleague, Wiley. It’s a new kind of stone that’s never before been seen in the trade and is therefore of inestimable value to potential collectors. Nicknamed “fish eyes” by the island’s people because of its bubblelike matrix, the gem isn’t merely a pretty thing to polish into knickknacks and beads; its embedded orbs possess strange and powerful mystical properties when activated by moonlight. A local government coup forces Wiley to leave the island before he can attempt to mine the stones, and 30 years later, Wiley is dying of cancer, attended by his devoted, much younger wife, Nadja. Desperate to experience the orbs’ magical effects, he enlists an adventurer named Roan to excavate the lode and bring the rocks to him at his Utah hospice. Roan’s mining crew faces great danger, working in extreme conditions at an isolated location reachable only by boat. Spirituality and mystery are key elements of Shapero’s story, which features dream sequences, accounts of visions, and elements of magical realism. The author only gives each character one name, doesn’t name locations at all, and never specifies dates, creating a feeling of timelessness and universality. The narrative remains grounded in the characters’ here and now by vivid, lyrical descriptions of elements of nature, including the island’s chirping frogs, wild bats, and drenching rain, and the desert landscape around the hospice; a collared lizard does “push-ups” on a flat stone, and the hem of a woman’s turquoise sari curls “like surf.” Wiley, Nadja, Roan, and the other players each evoke very different kinds of faith, and each confront their own moral dilemmas. The tale also offers a unique imagining of what might happen to the human soul after it’s left the body, provoking a sense of wonder and a lack of concrete resolution.

Original ideas and strong prose in a tale that combines mysticism with a touch of Indiana Jones adventure.