Particles and Luck

by Louis B. Jones

Mark Perdue and Roger Hoberman have nothing in common—except the joy of adjoining yards. Mark is a whiz-kid physicist who knows that his “genius” stature and his endowed chair at Berkeley are bits of dumb luck; Roger is the owner of a pizza franchise whose luck has turned dumb—in financial and marital distress, he has been denied child visitation rights but not babysitting obligations.

Now luck, in the form of an adverse claim on their property, brings Mark and Roger together for a fateful Halloween night neither of them will ever forget. Loony, humane, and transcendently wise,  Particles and Luck  is an irresistible comedy of manners and epistemology.

“A lovely and invigorating novel . . . a domestic farce and social satire. Jones writes [an] engaging novelistic equivalent of a unified field theory—in this case, a link between the human heart and the behavior of subatomic particles.”—Richard Eder,  Los Angeles Times

“Jones is the real thing—a writer with something to say and his own way of saying it.”—Scott Turow

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 23, 1993

About the author

Louis B. Jones is the author of three New York Times Notable Books - Ordinary Money (Viking 1990, Penguin 1991), Particles and Luck (Pantheon 1993, Vintage 1994), and California’s Over (Pantheon 1997, Vintage 1998). His newest novel, Radiance, will be published by Counterpoint Press May 2011. He is an NEA fellow and a fellow of the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. He has written screenplays – originals and adaptations of his own work – for studios and for independents. He's been a regular reviewer for the New York Times Book Review and has served as visiting writer at a number of colleges around the country. For some years he has acted as the Fiction Director for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I'm on a personal quest to rescue certain books from obscurity, and this is one of them. It really ought to be much, much better known. It's stylish, blackly funny, and often quite profound. Maybe I have a soft spot for novels that deal with physics (who doesn't?), but this is a wildly imaginative ride, full of energetic and often hilarious prose. Here's the opening line:

"Say there is a very fortunate young newlywed, a theoretical physicist named Mark Perdue, who has just purchased a deluxe semidetached unit in the Cobblestone Hearth Village Estates development--across from the Paradise Mall in Terra Linda--at the edge of the new-built Phase III section where the lawns and driveways aren't installed yet but where all the foundations meet new seismic code requirements and everybody is guaranteed a Mount Tamalpais view."

[Zoeytron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thought to be rather more brilliant than he really is, physicist Mark Perdue is about to spend a long night in the company of his next door neighbor, a simple man with a life full of problems.

If sheer originality counts for anything with you, and if you don't mind a goodly amount of references to all things physics-related, consider giving this one a try.

[Hock Tjoa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Say there is a very fortunate young newly wed, a theoretical physicist who has just purchased a deluxe semidetached unit...." Thus we are introduced to the main character of this witty book. He is "a groggy newcomer to California where even one's dearest old values are immediately refracted in the clean air. It turns out that he loves California, completely, amnesiacally."

A great deal goes on regarding the development of the sub-division and potential real estate scams or woes that haunt the imagination of the MC's neighbor and some might say this is a story of male bonding of an peculiar sort. Perhaps so, but I am more taken in by the fluent, plausible reflections on perception and reality, that test one's understanding of the meaning of meaning and the nature of nature.

Neither his "improbably beautiful" wife nor the voluptuous "work-study assistant"--dismissed by a colleague as "Euro-trash" participate in the plot. The one has hung the same two art posters wherever they had lived, "a Frida Kahlo self-portrait in traction and a Georgia O'Keefe anatomy of an iris incapable of fragrance." The other flirts with him and "a sweet remorse enters his life again"; they embrace and he discovers that "her hips adjust on a mysterious fulcrum," and "the air is different in the world of infidelity. It's clear."

Indeed, there does not appear to be much of a plot, just writing that scintillates. "We are out of oatmeal" says improbably beautiful wife, fully knowing "that setting a nickel of brown syrup at the north, south, east and west quadrants of his oatmeal is the only way he can begin his day (a manipulative way to get him of of bed, by panicking him."

The author deftly reveals more of the MC - "Before he sits anywhere, he has to lift the chair discreetly and tap each of its legs four times--upper left and right, then lower left and right--sixteen taps altogether."

We are treated to views into the MC's mind, such as--Turning on the faucet, he is entranced by the "perfectly smooth column of water which imprisons a filament of cold daylight. It's beautiful. It is impossible to imagine the whole thing could be time reversible--as if you could run the movie backward, provided you could also reverse particle charge and parity, and, in a mirror-reversed universe composed of anti-matter, watch the water swarm ... up the drain into a column and thrust itself up into the faucet--resulting in the identical apparition: a tube of water."

This is writing of a very high order. Going outdoors into the "cleansing air straightens his shoulders, makes him a few centimeters taller as the vertibrae unclench from the habitual spinal curve that characterized all the physicists [aligned] along the corridors like floating babies decaying."

Read. Savor.

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well crafted story suggesting that human relationships are subject to forces analogous to physical law. The protagonist, Mark, is a really annoying--and initially unlikeable physicist--who suffers from fairly severe OCD. Much against his will, Mark is thrust into a brief and fairly disastrous misadventure with his equally annoying and dysfunctional neighbor. If you can endure Mark's theorizing about the time space continuum, there are some pretty funny moments.

[Barbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe 1.5 stars would be more accurate to describe my response to this novel which portrays a day in the life of young genius physicist Mark Perdue and his hapless neighbor Roger Hoberman as they battle a supposed threat against their condo property by a old claimant.

[Coral · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was on the in-laws' shelf, which is how I found it. It was farily interesting and entertaining. The author found a way to weave quantum physics into this comedy of errors.

[Aaron Ambrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is the only novel I've ever read three times. It's beautiful, odd and haunting, and I still love it. New facets reveal themselves each decade when I read it again. The first time I read it I was 4 years younger than the younger main character, and now I'm 4 years older than the older main character. I'll just keep on as long as I'm allowed.

[Rachel Ashforth · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5. this book’s crutch word was ‘axiomatic’ so that’s a flex for sure and i fuck with it fr… perhaps this is a new favourite? definitely a book i wish to save from mortal obscurity… if you’re reading this: read the book!

[Caty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not great

[Hubert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is okay. It delves into the machinations of two yard neighbors, one a physics professor who is contemplating an affair, and another a Vietnam War vet who is going through some tough times, having separated from his wife (and has a restraining order on him). The book is fairly humorous, and is meant to be somewhat satirical, although I found it a tad tedious. It uses science metaphors in a clever, if sometimes overwrought, fashion.

[N · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Particles and Luck" by Louis B. Jones is a tad overlong for me, due to the fact it’s a novel that could have been summed up as either a short-story or novella that tells the tale of two men and adverse property in 1992 San Francisco Valley, California. Mark is a physicist at Berkeley, who knows it was luck that got him into a chair position at Berkeley; and Roger is a sad-sack of a former Vietnam vet whose pizza chain franchise has now gone defunct. Now it’s how ideals clash, love-lives are examined, and how fatherhood on Roger’s part may not be something Mark would want to get involved with. Overall, the novel is a gentle comedy of manners and class/social issues; but not worth 300 pages of overwrought and highly-styled writing in the fashion of an Arthur Phillips whom I hate.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm embarrassed that it's taken me so long to read one of Louis B. Jones' books, a writer who's given me so much through the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. This book is technically flawless. Everything works and moves the story along, a well oiled workhorse of a book. My one peccadillo is that the delayed gratification of Mark and Roger meeting the people who want to seize their land was a bit too drawn out.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky and just interesting enough to hold me, although I wanted just a little bit more. Or perhaps I wished the characters were a little bit different? But the book was very effective in getting me inside the head of someone else who is not like me! And good that the day's events unraveled with a little bit of mystery to them.

[Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well done. Interesting read.