"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.

"A Boy Made of Blocks" by Keith Stuart

After eight years of marriage, Alex Rowe is leaving his family, and not entirely by choice. His wife, Jody, has had it with the constant arguments and fights. What appears to be the cause is seven-year-old Sam. Sam is autistic.

The boy is determined to be at the higher-performance end of autism, but the simplest of activities or statements, or a food served in the wrong way, can set off out-of-control hysteria. He’s been mainstreamed into school, but that presents its own set of problems. The child craves control, in a world that seems out of control, at least to him. His parents, for different reasons, likely agree.

Alex moves in temporarily with Dan, a childhood friend. He’s trying to figure out how to get his life together when the second blow falls – he’s made redundant; i.e., he’s laid off. The problems and issues seem to be mounting, and he knows, sort of, that his basic problems lie in his distant past, with the death of his older brother George. Alex wants to remain a part of his son’s life, but that looks increasingly problematic.

Then Sam discovers the Minecraft video game. Alex begins to teach himself how to play it. And while it doesn’t happen in a straight line, things begin to change.

Keith Stuart

A Boy Made of Blocks by Keith Stuart was something of a surprise best-seller when it was published in Britain in 2016. It shouldn’t have been. Stuart based the novel on his own experience, and the story rings true through to the very end. The reader not only learns about autism, but also walks with Alex as he gradually comes to understand what his son, and himself, are about.

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, is scheduled to be published in 2018. He and his family live in Somerset, England.

A Boy Made of Blocks is a moving, wonderful story of a family nearly wrecked by a child’s serious condition and adults still trying to come to grips with their own pasts, and their own serious problems. It’s a story that helps us understand what it is to be human.

Related:

Keith Stuart discusses A Boy Made of Blocks.

Keith Stuart’s articles at The Guardian.

Top photograph by Glenn Carsten-Peters via Unsplash. Used with permission.