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On June 24, 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a string of nine unidentified flying objects in the Mount Rainier area, a story that would spark national news coverage and mark the first modern UFO sighting post-WWII. The story catalyzed an international obsession with UFOs and extraterrestrial life, and also serves as the genesis of Brian Castleberry’s debut novel, Nine Shiny Objects. The novel begins with Oliver Danville, a washed-up midwestern actor, who reads a news story about the sighting and travels to Washington to participate in the mystery for himself. Transformed by the discovery of these UFOs, Oliver becomes the Tzadi Sophit, the leader of a religious community called the Seekers, whose goal is to create a utopian society without race, gender, or class divisions.
The novel is told in nine sections by nine different interconnected narrators, all with some sort of relationship to the Seekers. The novel spans across decades, skipping over wide periods of time in the lives of its characters. The initial chapters of the novel recall the Seekers establishment of a housing development in a Long Island suburb, where residents violently protest their arrival in a hateful and ignorant riot that results in multiple fatalities. The remainder of the book sees different characters dealing with the aftermath of this violence, and coming to terms with the dissolution of the Seekers and the resulting generational trauma that the violent riot sparked.
What is perhaps most compelling about the book is its indirectness. None of the chapters are narrated by anyone within the Seeker group, they are all secondhand accounts of the group, a chorus of surrounding characters with totally different viewpoints. Some chapters are told from the perspectives of locals from the Long Island suburb in which the conflict occurred, and many are told by those who witnessed the riot firsthand, and have since distanced themselves from the haunting event. The novel is told from very diverse perspectives: a young black poet on a search to tap into his artistic talents, a bored and unsatisfied Long Island housewife, a Connecticut teen whose family has connections to the Seekers, a paranoid conspiracy theorist radio host, the wife of one of the main riot antagonists, and the descendant of one of the first Seekers. Some characters show up in different chapters without having their own chapter to narrate, such as the counter-culture icon and rockstar Max Felt, just a child at the time of the riot, who becomes a sort of cult figure himself.
Castleberry weaves together these many character arcs into a compelling and slow-burning narrative that manages to tie together all of its strings in a deeply satisfying way. He manages to fit brilliant and diverse character expositions into this single narrative, weaving together individually intriguing human stories. He also maintains a strong through line within the novel—a weighty consideration of how society is ordered, and a nuanced look at the diversity of the human experience. The novel doesn’t answer all of its own questions, it is chock full of unsolved mysteries, but this is what makes it so satisfying. Nine Shiny Objects is a sharply crafted and smart debut that allows compelling mysteries and flushed-out character arcs to coexist brilliantly.
Further Reading: If you enjoy books about cults, check out Emma Cline’s The Girls. If you were mesmerized by Castleberry’s writing style, try something by Jenny Offill, like Department of Speculation or Weather (Read my review here).