Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier
Set in an alternate history where Martians have been part of Earth's history since the late 19th century, Singer Distance opens in December 1960. Rick Hayworth, an MIT grad student, embarks on a cross-country road trip with his fellow students, headed to the Arizona desert and a potential legacy. This world has seen decades of mathematical communication between Earth and Mars, but Mars has fallen silent for 30 years, after stumping humans with its most recent mathematical quiz. Crystal Singer, Rick's girlfriend, believes she may have the answer to the Martians' latest puzzles.
“We had nothing but an idea that might be crazy, and it was a delicious feeling, being unsure if our own greatness was a secret or a myth.”
Ethan Chatagnier's Singer Distance is a wonderfully immersive mixture of literary prose and speculative fiction wonderment.
Singer Distance was a tad slow to engage at the start, laden with choppy little sentences. This seems to be a trend lately with shorter novels, as though they aren't beholden to the correct pacing standards, almost sneering at convention and willing to sacrifice some readers for it. It's probably a trend the literary world is due, as it reminds me of the movement away from convention that came in middle of the previous century. Chatagnier's narrative is bossy at first, asking very little form the reader other than to be a passive, avid listener.
But as the story continues, the narrative calms down and opens up. The sentences grow and do a lot of heavy lifting for the characters, the story arc, and the overall themes — of which there are many. With flashbacks, Chatagnier plays with moments in Rick's childhood, his relationships with his father, mother, and the admiration he had for a once-famous philosophizing mathematician Lucas Holladay who thought he had determined the correct answer for that seemingly unsolvable Martian proof. With a tenderness that charms through Rick, Chatagnier shows the reader all the little moments in Rick's life that shaped who he became and how he was able to apply these experiences to his life later on.
The book reads like a journey of its own. With its slow start, meandering a bit around curves, dimming some with night driving, but brilliantly lighting up with a sunrise, lingering on sunsets, and patiently waiting in the distance between. Interestingly, much of this book is a road trip story. As if the book itself is Mars patiently waiting on us to catch up, and we in turn are staring to the sky, waiting for a celestial event.
So close and yet so far away, Singer Distance explores the infinite distance between people and the sacrifice of knowledge and understanding alongside the cost of genius.
