Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins

Evidence of Things Unseen has an extraordinarily good novel lurking inside its pages, but it is very often "too much," including so many plot pieces, so many thematic references, so many superfluous passages, that its power is sometimes almost lost in the clutter.

The plot is interesting and touching, as it charts the course of the love of Fos and Opal between the years of the two World Wars, of his fascination with the science of light and of her longing for a child, of the rash actions of their friend Flash which lead to tragedy, of their displacement by the Tennessee Valley Authority to make way for the electrification of rural America, and finally of their time at the Oak Ridge Laboratories, where unbeknownst to them a bomb is being made. Then, after science has betrayed them, their son Lightening takes center stage, and the plot follows him as a young adult as he tries to make sense of his life, both his past and his future. The love story is charming, but the section with Lightening seems tacked on and is riddled with unbelievable coincidences and improbabilities. The book would have felt more authentic if it had not included so much.

Notice the names of the characters, which provide a good example of the "too much." All pertain to different properties of light; Fos is short for Foster, but it also refers to his fascination with phosphorus. Fos and Flash are photographers, working with light to capture images. Fos and Opal first come together as they count shooting stars, and at the end of the book their son Lightening and his newly-met love Ramona fall in love as they count shooting stars. (She has named herself after a yacht called "Ramona de la Luz" or "Ramona of the Light." Also, she is the daughter of Pearl. Also, as an artist she uses as her paint the crushed hearts of fish, producing pictures which only show up in the dark because they are luminescent.) Other discussions of light and references to light in the novel are too numerous to count. Also thrown into the mix are a myriad of references to Moby Dick, including quotes from the novel as chapter headings. Wiggins belabors her themes to the point of reader boredom.

The writing, which often takes off on very lyric and poetic flights, is often a little too much, over the top, interrupting the action with passages which seem to be included just because they are beautiful. But they are impressive, even if intrusive.

Despite these criticisms, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. I wonder if it would have won if it had not included too much.


I strongly recommend John Dollar, an earlier novel by Marianne Wiggins.