| Special Topics in Calamity Physics | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Marisha Pessl |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Murder mystery novel |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
| Publication date | 2006 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 519 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-670-03777-X |
| OCLC Number | 62755674 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.6 22 |
| LC Classification | PS3616.E825 S67 2006 |
Special Topics in Calamity Physics (2006) is a novel by American writer Marisha Pessl. It is the author's debut novel. The book was first published in August 2006 by Viking Press, a division of Penguin Group. The book received many positive reviews and was named one of "The 10 Best Books of 2006" by the New York Times. Some negative reviews, including one in The Guardian, accused the text of being overly stylized and Pessl of having "a tin ear for prose."[1] A movie version is in the works and is rumored to be produced by Scott Rudin.[2] The film will be directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the writing-directing team behind Half Nelson.
The book is written in the style of the syllabus for an English Literature course and includes references as footnotes. The chapters are named after novels like Othello, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, Wuthering Heights, Women in Love. While the book is replete with literary and cinematic references, some of these references, like "The Way of the Moth" and "One Night Stand" lead to non-existing sources.
Blue van Meer is the film-obsessed, erudite teenager whose head is filled with a witty pop culture lexicon, in contrast to most-90210-watching teenagers. She is the daughter of itinerant and arrogant academic Gareth van Meer, who, after the death of his amateur lepidopteran-catching wife (and Blue's mother), never manages to stay at a college for more than a semester. During Blue's senior year, however, they settle in the sleepy town of Stockton, North Carolina. She starts to attend the St. Gallway School and befriends a group of popular, rich, and ultra-mysterious teenagers called the Bluebloods: murky and rebellious Milton; flamboyant and flaming Nigel; ice-queen and pterodactyl Jade, free-loving, flower-child Leulah, and the dreamy Charles. The Bluebloods are also close friends with the film studies teacher at St. Gallway, Hannah Schneider, a perplexing woman who intrigues Blue more than she should. A drowning, a series of unfortunate events, and Hannah's own eventual death on a camping trip lead Blue to question everything she believes in.