The Geographer's Library
by Jon Fasman

List Price: $14.00
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0143036629
Publisher: Penguin

Stretching through time and around the world, The Geographer's Library is an accomplished debut from Jon Fasman. With his remarkable command of language and suspense, Fasman has crafted a novel that explores how interconnected lives and deaths across countless years can collide in a single moment.

Few humans are able to escape being swallowed up by history. What is comforting, however, is that history usually waits until after we are gone to completely consume us. Paul Tomm is not so fortunate. What seems to be a routine death in a quiet New England town soon unfolds across continents and centuries as it threatens to completely overwhelm him.

As a reporter for a small local newspaper, it is Paul's job to compile an obituary for a reclusive old professor from Wickenden, Paul's alma mater, who was found dead at home. And so Paul begins the usually monotonous and uneventful task of gathering the necessary information. There is no family. The medical examiner has a few questions about the immaculate condition of the victim's internal organs, but that line of questioning ends abruptly with the doctor's unexpected death by a hit-and-run driver. Another of Paul's sources, a thirty-one-year-old (and rather attractive) young lady, proves to offer more in the way of companionship than a scoop.

But there is clearly more to this story than a few lines in the obit column. Who made the anonymous call reporting the death? A macabre threat left on Paul's front door makes it clear that there is a larger story, a story that doesn't want to be written. With a little help from his gruff but caring editor, a former professor, and a small-town cop who cannot seem to stay out of trouble, Paul begins to unravel a story that becomes more mysterious with every new detail. As he investigates, the reader becomes acquainted with a series of objects that tell the history of alchemy and is offered chilling glimpses of life in the former Soviet Union, where even a person's very breath is not his own.

As the body count increases, Paul begins to feel more and more pressure --- from gentle to violent --- to call off his fact-finding mission and let the dead bury the dead. His stubbornness, fueled by a drive to further his career, threatens not only to end his newfound relationship but nearly costs him his life.

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1. Many people believe alchemy is merely about trying to turn lead into gold. But there is a rich tradition of alchemy running through many disciplines --- from religion to chemistry, from literature to psychology. What are some examples?

2. Paul gets very close to one of his sources almost immediately. Do you think this is merely due to his lack of experience or might there be some other issues involved? What do you think would have happened to Paul if he had kept a professional distance between them?

3. What sort of picture does Fasman paint of life in the Soviet Union

4. Do you think Paul is afraid of his own ambition? How might the events of the novel limit or narrow his career?

5. Hannah's asking Paul to write down everything that happened sounds vaguely similar to the request made of an Estonian poet in the novel. Despite Tonu's promises, do you think Paul is still in grave danger?

6. Discuss the narrative device of having chapters end with descriptions of the objects from the library.

7. Looking back, Paul remembers several instances when he should have paid more attention to Hannah's strange behavior (for example, when they first meet Tonu together). Reflect on the various occasions in the novel when greater vigilance about odd behavior might have had a decisive effect.

8. There is very little interaction between the novel's characters and their families. Why do you think this is the case?

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"Fasman's fast-paced tale is almost all plot... These characters are better drawn than those in The Da Vinci Code."

—Newsweek

"A brainy noir . . . [a] winningly cryptic tale . . . a cabinet of wonders written by a novelist whose surname and sensibility fit comfortably on the shelf between Umberto Eco and John Fowles."

—Los Angeles Times

"One of the year's most literate and absorbing entertainments."

—Kirkus Reviews