Edisson and Jeremiah is a novel every bit as bold as it is broad. Author Michael Carin dares not only to reopen some of the biggest wounds in readers’ collective memory, but to illuminate a not-so-bright future, weaving together scientific, spiritual, and political worlds. Beginning at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and working its way through the darkest days of the Trump presidency, it also envisions a United States under the yoke of artificial intelligence.

In the year 2034, a fourteen-year-old boy approaches the owner of a historic theatre in an unnamed city and requests permission to perform a magic show. The owner is skeptical, but after spending just a few hours with the boy, he becomes convinced that Edisson is no ordinary teenager and that this will be no ordinary magic show. The fateful night draws a smaller than expected crowd, but the eight unlikely attendees to Edisson’s show have little idea how lucky they are – or what this boy magician has in store for them. As they assist in the performance of what are not mere tricks but miracles, the participants are brought together in a strange confederacy, one that explores the divide between the possible and the impossible and tests the limits of human potential.

One participant in Edisson’s show, the ostentatiously named but shabbily dressed Mr. Jeremy Vanderbilt Delaney, Esq., also known as Jeremiah, is in for a particular shock. Though dismissed by society and his fellow participants as a “tramp,” “jerk,” “wreck,” “drunk,” and “creep,” Delaney is revealed to have enjoyed a privileged upbringing and an illustrious career. As the truth of his past and the events leading to his downfall become clear, a hope for change and a plea for redemption begin to flicker in the ruined man’s eyes. But before Jeremiah and his co-conspirators can get on with the rest of their lives, a disappearing act to rival any performed by Houdini will shake the crowd – and later the country – to its very core.

Considering his background in political theory, Michael Carin’s skill at reproducing the contemporary American political landscape and imagining its near future comes as no surprise. With a sharp wit, a keen eye for detail, and a healthy amount of disdain, Carin explores the effects of religious fundamentalism, discrimination and hate, and the spread of misinformation. His characters, most notably Jeremiah, suffer from the “deep fracture in American culture,” but as they learn to suspend judgment, exercise compassion, and connect to themselves and each other, they tap into a healing power with applications for political as well as personal ills.

For all that it accomplishes, Edisson and Jeremiah opens a lot of doors that it never quite manages to close. Five hundred pages proves insufficient space to develop the dozen or so personalities and perspectives from which this story is told, and the constant jumping through time, frequent foraying into complex scientific concepts, and pervasive grammatical faux-pas do not make for an easier reading experience.

Unfortunately, too, while the author has clearly taken pains to display progressive political stripes, his writing on race, gender, sexuality, and disability leaves much to be desired. Indeed, the most shocking elements of this book are to be found not in miracle magic tricks or quantum mechanical breakthroughs, but in a use of slurs and other offensive language that ranges from the mildly insensitive to the wildly inappropriate. Perhaps, before injecting yet another POV into this book, Carin ought to have paused to consider his own. mRb