"The Frequency of Us" by Keith Stuart

Laura James has returned to Bath from London, and she’s living with her mother. Laura suffers from a variety of afflictions – anxiety, insecurity, and panic attacks are a few of them. Much of her life has been defined by her father, a man who would simultaneously give her what a child needs from a father and then belittle her and remind her of how worthless she was. Years before, her father had abandoned Laura and her mother, but he still shapes his daughter’s life. 

She begins a job as a carer, working for a social agency and assigned to check on elderly residents. She’s given the case of 87-year-old Will Emerson, who is something of a recluse living in Avon Lodge, the home of his family for 150 years. His neighbors think he’s eccentric; property developers would love to have his home, tear it down, and build something new and expensive. 

 

At first, Will wants nothing to do with his new carer. But he sees something in Laura that she at first doesn’t see herself. Before too long, however, she realizes that she has a purpose in being there, knowing Will, and learning his story. It’s important that she do for both Will and herself. And it’s something of a challenge: Will insists that he had a wife that no one else had ever heard of, that no record exists of, and who seems a figment of the old man’s imagination. He’s even filled journals of their life from the time he says they met, in 1938, to the time something happened, in 1942.

 

Keith Stuart

And the “something” was a German bombing raid on Bath in 1942. He tells Laure that he was showing a neighborhood boy all the wireless sets he had in his work shed (Will was a radio technician) when the raid occurred. The neighborhood was bombed; he doesn’t know what happened to the boy. All he remembers was seeing his beloved Elsa framed in the light of the kitchen door. He woke up in the hospital, and discovered that no one, including his neighbors, had ever heard of or seen Elsa.

 

The story of Will and Laura is told by British writer Keith Stuart is his new novel The Frequency of Us. And what a story it is! Like his previous novels (A Boy Made of Blocks remains a personal favorite), it is filled with unexpected twists and turns. You think you know what’s happening, until suddenly you’re wrong. And then you’re wrong again. And again. It’s a riveting book to read, and it’s Stuart’s skill in characterization that you come to care greatly about what happens to Will and to Laura. 

 

Stuart is the games editor for The Guardian newspaper, and has written extensively on video games, digital culture, and film. His second book, Days of Wonder, was published in 2018. He and his family live in Somerset, England. In his newest novel, he takes the reader on a trip to the early days of wireless communication and the role it played in World War II. 

 

The Frequency of Us is a wonderful story of healing brokenness, solving a personal mystery (and actually more than one personal mystery), and of two people reaching across decades to find what really matters in their lives.

 

Related:

A Boy Made of Blocks by Keith Stuart.