Evidence of Things Not Seen
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
When high school junior Tommy Smythe goes missing, everyone has a theory about what happened to him. He was an odd kid, often deeply involved in particle physics, so maybe he just got distracted and wandered off. He was last seen at a pullout off the highway, so maybe someone snatched him. Tommy believes that everything is possible, and that until something can be proven false, it may be true. So as long as Tommy's whereabouts are undetermined, he could literally be anywhere.Told in a series of first-person narratives from people who knew Tommy, Evidence of Things Not Seen by award-winning author Lindsey Lane explores themes of loneliness, connectedness, and the role we play in creating our own realities.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her first novel for teens, Lane, author of the picture book Snuggle Mountain, offers a gripping and genre-bending mosaic centered around the sudden disappearance of physics-obsessed high school junior Tommy Smythe. Lane presents the first-person narratives of characters being interviewed by the small Texas town's sheriff about Tommy and third-person vignettes that read like character studies. Chatty Kimmie Jo is exploring her Mexican identity; Marshall attempts a romantic relationship with the new girl in town, who has a troubled past; Alvin is inspired by Tommy to conceive of a life away from his abusive father and thankless employment at a salvage yard; Maricela, a migrant worker, wishes for a more stable life; while many others consider their futures. Ponderings from Tommy's notebook about quantum physics appear throughout specifically, questions of parallel dimensions and infinite possibilities blurring the boundaries between observable reality and the unseen. Each character has some connection, even if tangential, to Tommy, whose disappearance speaks to the inscrutability of time, the universe, and the construction of individual truths. Ages 12 up.
