"People lean, either in their dreams or in their actions, toward that place where they suspect their inner lights are coming from. Whether they call it God or conscience or the manual of Army protocol, people sublime toward where their inner fire burns, and given enough fuel for thought and a level playing field to dream on, anyone can leave a fingerprint on the blank of history."
Plot: Nice guy amateur scientist gives his wife (and himself) cancer. America enters enters the atomic age. Is it progress?
Why read it: Few novels are able to give such a complete feel of everyday life in the early 20th century as this does. I was particularly impressed with the road trips Fos (and sometimes Opal) takes early on; these were real adventures back then, given the newness of automobiles, the lack of highways and the attached conveniences.
After reading three of Marianne Wiggin's novels, it suddenly occurred to me that they all take place in the early 20th century. I'm not sure if that's an important point or not. beyond this, they don't have a lot in common other than protagonists who are just slightly outside the mainstream of life, attempting to fit in the way they can rather than just breaking away completely.
Evidence of Things Unseen is about light. Fos (Ray Foster), trained as a candle maker, then shipped off to WWI and ends up making flares so the men in the trenches can "see death coming." He parlays that into a job at a photography studio with his war buddy, the heavy drinking, womanizing, rich Flash (real name Chance) back in Tenessee. Fos is fascinated by the natural light of the world, whether from the nighttime sky, or bioluminesncence, or wherever else he can find it. On an annual trip to see the sky in Kitty Hawk, Fos' car breaks down (the human made world will on occasion fail us) he meets Opal, a young woman he quickly falls in love with. They get married, working at the studio in Tennessee and using Fos' homemade x-ray machine at local fairs to show the bones in Opal's feet.
Their story will move through the next few decades of America with everything that implies. Symbolism is heavy in this book, form the character's names to the wooden whales that appear often. Flash will figure prominently in the roaring 20's as one would assume. The depression takes over soon after, until that leads to the coming of war and a new age for America. The writing is wonderful, lyrical and vividly describes life in a different, slower America of the time.
Look closely and you can get glimpses of Melville, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck running through the book.
