The Infinite Tides

Author	Kiefer, Christian
Year	2012
First published	2012
Publisher	New York: Bloomsbury
Number of pages	400
Edition	First US Hardcover
ISBN	9781608198108
Keywords	mathematics, physics, astronomy, literary or mainstream

Abstract

Keith Corcoran is a mathematician, engineer, and astronaut. On his first Space Mission, after he has installed an important new arm of his own design on the International Space Station, he learns that his teenaged daughter has died in a car accident, and before he is able to return to Earth, he learns that his wife has left him.

Once he is finally back on the ground, NASA wants him to take a sabbatical and try to regain his health and work through his grieving process, but all he wants to do is go back to space. However, after tragedy struck him, he developed debilitating migraines, a condition which jeopardize his chances of returning to space.

The narrative begins when Keith returns to the home his wife has moved out of and attempts to get ready to sell. All his life he has had a special genius-like relationship to numbers, a relationship he believes his daughter shared, although she did not seem to value her gift, and he could not really value her outside of that. He was always convinced that numbers in the correct equations could express anything, but these twin tragedies challenge him to realize there are realities that equations cannot express, and truths they cannot solve for.

This novel goes on too long, but it’s also moving (in a rather flat way) and well written. Keith’s expertise as a mathematician and engineer and his drive to be an astronaut definitely shape his character and structure the plot, and the book is rich (if not rife) with metaphors derived from the fields of math, engineering, and space travel. In addition, one of Keith’s neighbors is a Ukrainian man with a passion for astronomy, so that’s another nerdish thread in the novel. (Jean Hegland, FMS Novelists Network)