Constellations: A Scientific Novel

by Russell McCormmach

The astrophysicist Maggie Kenrick is passionate about her work, and in the past, that was all she asked of life. In the middle of a successful career, over the space of three years, she faces several trials, which open her two questions that fall outside astronomy and to a range of humanity that lies outside her experience. One trial is the death of her two closest colleagues, both killed in suspicious car crashes on an observatory road. A second his tensions and failures in her immediate family, including addiction. In both of these trials, what is at stake for Maggie is life, including her own. A third trial is personal frustrations, including rivalry with a dismissive fellow cosmologist. A fourth trial, which runs through the novel, is one everybody how to live well. Bringing reason and evidence to her earthly problems, Maggie shows an acute awareness that certainty is rare and hard to achieve, an aspect of her scientific view of the world. In her profession, Maggie worked on problems of the evolution of the universe, including life here on earth. This novel portrays a character for whom science offers a way of life.

Kindle Edition

Published August 19, 2020