The Frequency of Souls - Softcover

Zuravleff, Mary Kay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 031242485X ISBN 13: 9780312424855

Publisher: Picador, 1900

Synopsis

Meet George Mahoney, designer of refrigerators and a real middle-of-the-road kind of guy. Even his wife describes him as "passive-passive." What changes all this is the arrival of a new office mate, the youthful Niagara Spense. A six-foot, near-sighted scientist--whose personality makes up for her fashion sense--Niagara seeps into George's life and makes the unthinkable irresistible. George can't get enough of her and her incredible quest for electrical evidence of life after death. But are the sparks reallly flying? Or is Niagara merely providing a needed surge in George's static existence? As the two workers connect in this charming love story, George finds himself reevaluating his family, his career, and the protective shell he has so carefully constructed to guard against the dangers of love and an active imagination.

About this title

Review:

"Beguiling and wildly inventive...A funny and wholly original love story that weds the everyday to the supernatural." --Chicago Tribune

"Read this book! Zuravleff fashions small moments of comic wonder in this novel of family and FM frequencies, magic and flirting, metaphysics and doughnuts." --San Diego Tribune

"Engaging...Zuravleff's insightful yet gentle rendering of the absurd [allows] readers to connect fully with her quirky and endearing characters." --The New York Times Book Review

"Page after page, the descriptions of the novel are laugh-out- loud funny. Smart and refreshingly tender...with a stylish ebullience reminiscent of Anne Tyler." --News & Observer (Raleigh)

From the Back Cover:

Winner of the American Academy's Rosenthal Foundation Award
Winner of the James Jones First Novel Award
"Beguiling and wildly inventive...A funny and wholly original love story that weds the everyday to the supernatural."--"Chicago Tribune
George Mahoney suspects he is getting a little stale at redesigning refrigerators, after fourteen years in the same job. With the arrival of his new office mate, Niagara Spense, George is forced to reevaluate everything in his life from love and family, to science itself. Despite his allegiance to facts and the physical world, George becomes obsessed by the six-foot-tall Niagara, who reveals that she is on a quest for electrical evidence of life after death-"audible fossils," she calls them. As Niagara Spense seeks the dead, and George seeks her, everything suddenly becomes possible in a novel that makes engineering funny, and mixes the world of icemakers and butter softeners with the miraculous.
"Riveting ...Zuravleff has created some of the most wonderfully realized characters in current fiction."--"Dallas Morning News
"Read this book! Zuravleff fashions small moments of comic wonder in this novel of family and FM frequencies, magic and flirting, metaphysics and doughnuts."--"San Diego Tribune
"Engaging...Zuravleff's insightful yet gentle rendering of the absurd [allows] readers to connect fully with her quirky and endearing characters."--"The New York Times Book Review
"Page after page, the descriptions of the novel are laugh-out-loud funny. Smart and refreshingly tender...with a stylish ebullience reminiscent of Anne Tyler."--"News & Observer (Raleigh)
Mary Kay Zuravleff is the author of "The Bowl Is Already Broken.Her previous jobs include teaching writing and calculus, working in engineering plants, and editing for museums. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 1900
• ISBN 10: 031242485X
• ISBN 13: 9780312424855
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256