Following her acclaimed Last Night in Montreal and The Singer's Gun, Emily St. John Mandel's The Lola Quartet is another engrossing tale of things not being what they seem, exploring questions of identity, family and the near-impossibility of being the person you want to be.
Before high school graduation in Sebastian, Fla., the Lola Quartet--Daniel on bass, Gavin on trumpet, Sasha on drums and Jack on sax--is playing one last gig. Tonight, Anna, Sasha's half-sister and Gavin's girlfriend, floats a paper airplane down to Gavin. On it is written "I'm sorry." He doesn't see her again for 10 years.
Gavin gets a degree in journalism at Columbia and goes to work for a newspaper. But his girlfriend has a miscarriage that causes their breakup, then he's caught writing fraudulent copy and loses his job. Maxing out his credit cards, he gets a call from his sister, who's seen a child who looks just like Gavin.
Gavin moves back to Florida to look for Anna and his putative daughter, concluding that she disappeared because she was pregnant. If that were all there was to it, there might be a happy ending. He tries desperately to find Anna, meet his child and assume responsibility, but no one will help him. His former bandmates are involved, and there's a "plan" that Gavin knows little about.
Mandel keeps the reader wondering if there is any hope for a recapture of the harmony the quartet once shared as Gavin attempts to get it right. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.