The Coincidence Plot

by Anil Menon

Once there was a man who believed, like the philosopher Spinoza, that all things happen for a reason. Once there was a woman who found the idea nonsensical, even repulsive. They met. Perhaps for a reason, perhaps by chance. What happens next transforms their lives and those of the people they love.

Anil Menon’s novel The Coincidence Plot weaves the tale through multiple cities, circumstances and lives. Some characters seem to be the heroes of their own lives, while others seem to serve other designs. However, they are all connected by subtle parallels and strange coincidences. This ingenious novel, by a writer of remarkable originality, addresses one of life's simplest yet hardest to what extent are we truly free? 
 
Once there was a reader who picked up this novel…
 

228 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 26, 2023

About the author

Anil Menon is a leading Indian writer of speculative fiction, as well as a computer scientist with a Ph.D. from Syracuse University, who has authored research papers and edited books on Evolutionary Algorithms; his research addressed the mathematical foundations of replicator systems, majorization, and reconstruction of probabilistic databases, in collaboration with Professors Kishan Mehrotra, Chilukuri Mohan, and Sanjay Ranka. After working for several years as a computer scientist, he has directed his creative energies towards fiction. His short stories and reviews have appeared in the anthology series Exotic Gothic, Strange Horizons, Interzone, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Chiaroscuro, Sybil's Garage, Apex Digest and other magazines. In 2009, Zubaan Books, India's leading feminist press, published his debut young adult novel The Beast With Nine Billion Feet. It was shortlisted for the 2010 Vodafone Crossword Book Award and 2010 Parallax prize. In 2009, in conjunction with Vandana Singh and Suchitra Mathur, he helped organize India's first in-residence, three-week speculative fiction workshop at IIT-Kanpur.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Menon

Reviews

[Manu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not often in the fiction genre does one find a novel that is challenging and entertaining. The fact that I did not buy this book (D did) is a coincidence that does seem very meta. I absolutely loved this book - its explorations of philosophy, the layering of its plots and characters, and the fantastic conversations that they have with each other, and sometimes, themselves.
The book is a wandering of sorts, centred around coincidences and the kind of God that exists in such a world. If that smells like Spinoza, it's not a coincidence. The plots, subplots, and characters are all built around this theme. Starting with Artur, a mathematician escaping Nazi Germany working on Spinoza’s thesis after his work on the uncertainty of mathematical proofs remains unfinished, to two characters working on novels to bring to existence this mathematician's life and thoughts - “ontological proof for the existence of God”. In case I made it out to be a mind-numbing philosophy grind, it isn't. The characters and interesting, and well-written, and so are their relationships.
It's definitely not the standard linear book. Each chapter has two characters from a finite set, but placed across different geographical settings and time periods. As we go along, the parallels are unmistakeable, and that is not a coincidence. Anil Menon seems to know a bunch of things about a bunch of things. It allows him to create layers and depths, and when you combine that with the twin powers of a fantastic sense of humour, and a poignant sensitivity and empathy towards grief and the human condition in general, it creates a marvel. Sometimes preposterous, sometimes profound, this has been one of my favourite fiction reads in a while!