Unified Field Theory

by Frank Soos

The short stories in Unified Field Theory capture characters in the middle of their lives as things fall apart. Jobs, marriages, and hopes disintegrate under people while they seek strategies and explanations. In "When the Hoot Owl Moves Its Nest, " a surveyor blames the wreck of his marriage on his inability to interpret old-fashioned signs. In "If You Meet the Buddha by the Road, " a bicyclist seeks peace, and perhaps finds it, in Buddhism, while his ex-wife grieves for her lost youth. In the title story, a warehouseman seeks to overcome resignation through his misconception of particle physics. Frank Soos's stories do not move toward epiphany. The men and women in Unified Field Theory have moments of emotional or intellectual recognition, but their lives are too complex for these moments to suggest long-term alterations. The stories suggest a way of thoughtfully and emotionally participating in other people's worlds.

Genres: Short Stories

175 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1998

Reviews

[Chris Lott]

The stories in Frank Soos’s Unified Field Theory are dark concoctions, stories of (mostly) men descending into their own wreckage. Alice Munro’s influence—if she wrote stories of men aging rather than women coming of age—is strong and there are more than a few hints of Flannery O’Connor’s sly edge. But Soos’s voice is his own, characterized by a sharp eye for detail and an exceptional calmness that seems to come from a place beyond indifference and detachment…a place of writerly enlightenment as poised as his eccentric, seeking characters are not.

There are practical ways to measure how much I like a book: do I keep it? Do I seek out the hardback edition? Is it all marked up in my idiosyncratic system of symbols and illegible marginalia? Am I spurred to find the rest of the author’s work? Have many sections made their way to my commonplace book? Will I give copies to friends? Yes to all of these.

Side note: I tend to be irrationally and presumptively dismissive of writers and artists I know…witnessing them engaged in the mundane routines of daily life interferes with my subconscious’s stubborn insistence that those possessing real talent live on some different inaccessible plain. Back when I thought I might have some talent, I took a couple of creative writing classes from Frank (he was an exceptionally generous teacher; I was an exceptionally pedestrian student). I see him occasionally at the coffee shop or the post office. As a result I waited far too long to read Unified Field Theory assuming, wrongly, that Soos couldn’t really be a first-rate writer. I’m rarely happy to have been so wrong.

[Xian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few stories were pleasantly nihilistic and has a flow that I rarely see, but then the characters' flaws become less easy to sympathize with, and the last story just seems random and incoherent.