Review: Entanglement – Quantum and Otherwise by John K. Danenbarger

An awe-inspiring novel, Entanglement – Quantum and Otherwise by John K. Danenbarger is a story of crime, death, love, and the contradictory nature of human relationships. Tied together by what could seem almost like destiny, Geena, Beth, Kevin, Davis, Joe, and Martin are entangled in a deeply moving novel where there is neither total damnation nor the hope for full redemption.

Professor Martin Case, Joe’s lover of many years, is working on an important theory in the field of quantum physics. He believes his work, craftily hidden to protect his discovery, will change the world, merging the lines between science and fate. The characters’ lives mirror this dichotomy, as their experiences straddle the edges between light and darkness, death and life.

When Geena receives a letter from her long-time friend Joe, she is shocked – her father is dead, Joe is forsaking her, and her brother hasn’t been told any of it. For Geena to understand what this all means she needs to dive back into her painful past, reach out to her brother half a globe away, and relive feelings she has worked hard to control, to push away, to forget. Life is complicated, and her mother knew that more than many.

When she was at her lowest, many years before Geena’s birth, she met Joe, and he saved her. Year after year their bond had remained pure and deep, but how much pain was in that bond, scarred by all the tragic events that had brought them together? First Joe saved Beth from the street, then twenty years later Joe and Martin’s tragic accident resulted in Joe moving in with Beth. Beth, her husband Kevin, their daughter Geena, and their adoptive son Davis find themselves in the same tight web of love, despair, hope, and blood as Joe, Martin, and many others, who will always remain profoundly interlinked.

The complexity of each character, their motives, their crimes, and their passions, rules out the certainty of divine faith, or the comfort of a world where individuals can be gauged by clear-cut concepts of right and wrong. Alcoholism, abuse, death, murder, mental illness, and poverty, but also love, care, and kindness are all mercilessly entangled. The connections the characters forge together result in events that defy the linear passage of time, and even escape reality as we know it, for a story that explores the universe writ large, as well as the universe of our complex emotions.

Beautifully written, Entanglement – Quantum and Otherwise has a powerfully poetic take on human existence and is never afraid to delve deep into people’s darkest instincts, as well as those moments when people are at their most compassionate. Danenbarger’s ability to fearlessly write about the beautiful and the ugly in equally lyrical terms is at the heart of the book, alongside the fascinating exploration of quantum physics. In terms of the book’s focus on science, while the enigma of Martin’s research is instrumental to the story, a bit more clarity on the nature of the discovery could have helped to strengthen the book’s circular structure.

All told, Entanglement – Quantum and Otherwise is a mind-opening novel that is uniquely ambitious in its quest for understanding our place in the universe, with all its mystery and darkness that each of us carries within.