THIS IS HOW PEOPLE DIE

What begins as a story of grief evolves into a sprawling metaphysical quest.

Initially, Cathcart’s novel seems to follow a familiar beat: a young man named Scoot mourns his departed friend, Hannah. Both have been living with cystic fibrosis; in the aftermath of Hannah’s death, Scoot finds that Hannah has left him money and a detailed request. It’s that request that leads things in a strange direction: Hannah’s wishes involve Scoot traveling to Europe to find the preserved heart of the composer and pianist Chopin. (That isn’t as random as it seems: several characters remark on parallels between Chopin’s tuberculosis and the cystic fibrosis that afflicts Hannah and Scoot.) The journey takes him to Tbilisi, Georgia, and involves Niki, a woman with her own connection to Hannah. Gradually, the boundaries of the novel expand even further, to include several chapters narrated by the late novelist George Sand. Cathcart moves backward and forward in time, filling in details about Scoot and Hannah’s relationship, Scoot’s troubled family history, and how precisely Niki fits into the narrative. There’s also the matter of Hannah’s desire for posthumous revenge on the sinister Dr. Owning and the supernatural Haint pursuing Scoot. A madcap energy keeps much of the story going, but there’s also a lot of plot happening here, including an allusion to the many crimes of Soviet secret police head Lavrentiy Beria, an organization called the Oulipo that seems distinct from the literary organization Georges Perec belonged to, and a subplot involving performance artist and cystic fibrosis patient Bob Flanagan. It’s tremendously ambitious, but it also sometimes loses sight of the human connections at its heart.

A surreal and globe-trotting quest novel that doesn’t always click into place.