The Causative Factor

The Causative Factor is wonderfully original in so many ways—the characters, their careers (a plumber and an artist who makes complicated boxes), the plot twists, the settings (western New York State and the borough of Queens in New York City). It’s a love story about different kinds of love.

The story opens with—literally—a splash: Rachel Goodwin and Rubiat Elsayem, two university art students who are paired in an unusual class project, quickly become attracted to each other. When they go on a hike alongside deep mountain gorges, Rubiat abruptly dives off the edge of a cliff into an impossible depth of water and rock.

Over the next five years, Rachel tries to build a career and a love life, and to forget that harrowing day.

She gains increasing attention (though not much money) in the art world making multifaceted “boxes” of fabric, wood, paint, paper, and whatever the viewer sees: “Hints, clues, reflections, nothing ever fully revealed. A sense that something is hidden, something is missing, something was there once but now is absent.” These magical-realistic boxes are an amazing invention of the author’s, their reflections also reflecting Rachel’s changing view of herself as well as her growing skill.

But Rachel is haunted by what seems like Rubiat’s suicidal dive—even more so after she learns that, in fact, he survived.

Almost halfway through, the book starts alternating between Rachel and Rubiat as narrators, with occasional chapters from the points of view of some secondary characters, including Rachel’s new boyfriend and Rubiat’s mother.

Among other developments, Rubiat has become a plumber, fascinated with the work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. But he is confused and emotionally frozen, unable to explain to himself why he dove off the cliff.

With powerful writing, this novel delves into the two primary characters’ underlying motives and conflicts. They are both fully alive, complex, and sympathetic human beings. Many of the secondary cast members are also original, well-drawn people, including Rubiat’s plumbing-company mentor and a couple of his clients.

This novel’s main weakness is Donna, Rubiat’s therapist. She is brilliant at pushing Rubiat to dig into his truest motivations, and in record time. (Indeed, I wish I had such a skilled therapist.) But what might be great in real life is a problem in fiction: The explanations come too easily, spelled out in full color.

Overall, though, this is a beautiful and enthralling book. You may think you know how the story will end, but along the way it twists as sharply as some of those mountain paths.