Customer Reviews

Julian Solo

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Julian Solo, Reuben's first novel, harkens back to the days of Robin Cook and Michael Crichton's early medical thrillers, the murky laboratories of scientists obsessed with the key to eternal life, in this case cryogenics. The story takes place in the not-too-distant past, but before much of the current technology we enjoy today. There are no cell phones, no personal computers, just the strange and hallowed halls of Roosevelt Island Psychiatric Hospital, where a surgeon, Julian Solo, becomes fascinated by his studies of the hypothalamus, concocting a serum he believes can postpone death indefinitely.

All this would be academic had he not fallen in love with Cynthia Wylie, who is suddenly afflicted with symptoms that suggest a degenerative nerve disease. Hopelessly in love with his new wife, Julian turns his back on the obvious adoration of his secretary, Melanie Graice, to whom he entrusts all the details of his extensive research and correspondence. As the novel opens, Cynthia's son, Mathew, awaits word of his fate, the unwitting victim of circumstances beyond his control. Mathew has faced the truth and found it wanting; he has demanded an accounting of events that have spiraled into a dazzling mix of intentions, good and ill, a potential scientific breakthrough and a flawed experiment.

Weaving a small cast of characters into an intricate web of dreams come true and nightmares awakened, Reuben ponders the dark side of power, tampering with fate and the loss of perspective occasioned by excessive love. When human failings intervene, as they always will, the possible becomes grotesque and circumstances run amok, diluting the purity of science, tainting all. The prose is archaic, a little tortured, which only serves to emphasize the unsettling ambiance of this bizarre and prescient tale. In a mix of chilling journal entries, the story takes shape, step by step closer to the tragic denouement, the great folly of Julian Solo. Luan Gaines/ 2006.