Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Marisha Pessl’s debut mystery novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics (2006) won the first Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize in 2006 and made the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2006 list. The story follows Blue van Meer, a teenager who attends the St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina. When the film studies teacher at the school dies under mysterious circumstances, it is up to Blue to figure out who Hannah Schneider really was and if she died of suicide, or if she was murdered and by whom.

The book is divided into three parts, and the overall writing style of the novel is a combination of first person memoir of an older Blue looking back on her childhood and time at St. Gallway School, mixed with an academic monograph, complete with cited references and quotes of famous books, plays, poetry, art, and films. Sprinkled throughout the text are hand-drawn illustrations of characters and alleged photographs/art, always referred to parenthetically as Figures. Furthermore, each of the chapters is titled with famous works of literature such as Othello, Moby Dick, and The Big Sleep. The character of Blue is erudite to the point of being unbearably pedantic. Butterflies and their fragility are a recurring motif throughout the entire novel.

Blue van Meer is the daughter of Gareth van Meer, an itinerant professor who is unable to spend more than a single semester at any one college. Since his wife and Blue’s mother Natasha (a lepidopterist) died in a car accident, they roam from town to town. Finally, in her senior year, they settle in North Carolina. The first part recounts her life story up until the fateful first days at St. Gallway School. She falls in with a group of popular kids called the Bluebloods (Charles, Jade, Milton, Leulah, and Nigel) who are friends with Hannah Schneider, and Blue attends Sunday lunches with them at her house. Hannah has a penchant for adopting strays—stray animals that turn up at the local shelter, abandoned objects that she takes and makes into something new, and people. The Bluebloods reluctantly adopt Blue as one of their own, and Jade facilitates Blue’s makeover. Although Blue somewhat likes Hannah and the Bluebloods, she thinks something is strange about Hannah and the fact that the only company she seems to keep is with teenagers. When Hannah throws a costume party without inviting them, the Bluebloods decide to sneak in. Unfortunately, they are discovered when Jade becomes a witness to the discovery of a body of one of the guests. Although everyone thinks he drowned, later evidence suggests he was deliberately poisoned



Around the holidays, Zach asks Blue out to the Christmas formal dance, serenading her with Earth Wind and Fire’s “Let’s Groove” and a choreographed public dance number. Blue agrees to go unenthusiastically; at the party, she abandons him to look after Jade, who shows up drunk and echoes Blue’s own instincts about Hannah. She also admits to Blue that she thinks Hannah killed the guest at her party and that Hannah’s story about being good friends with Smoke Harvey was a lie. She also thinks that Hannah might have slept with Charles, who still hangs on her every word. Jade and Blue decide to break into Hannah’s classroom to look for evidence. When she gets home, her father informs her that he accepted a post at another university for the spring semester, and they have a fight. Angry, Blue runs away from home, ending up at Hannah’s house. She learns that Hannah and Jade had had a augment earlier in the evening. Hannah tells Blue some of Jade’s upbringing—wealthy and neglectful. Blue makes up with her father and he decides not to accept the other posting after all.

During spring break, Hannah takes the Bluebloods out on a camping trip. At the campsite, Hannah and Blue sneak away from camp for a moment to have a talk. Hannah seems to be on the verge of confessing something, but someone in the woods distracts them. It appears that someone is watching them. Hannah goes after the person and doesn’t come back. Eventually, Blue starts walking and hears a sound like a child’s swing. The sound is Hannah’s body, hanging from a tree. Blue panics and runs; the next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital and being interviewed by a police officer. For the rest of spring break, she watches the news and broods on what happened. When she calls the rest of the Bluebloods, she finds that none of them will talk to her.

Back at school, the consensus is Hannah committed suicide. The Bluebloods exclude Blue from their circle because they all blame her or think she had something to do with Hannah’s death. Later, a coroner’s report officially rules Hannah’s death as a suicide. Blue goes to the lead investigator, Sergeant Harper. Harper explains why they think it was suicide and reveals that not only did Hannah grow up in an orphanage, but she tried to hang herself when she was eighteen. However, at Hannah’s house, Blue finds a movie about a woman who disappears. She wonders if that was Hannah’s plan all along—not to die but to disappear in a way that looked like she died. As she investigates, she realizes that nothing about Hannah is as it seems, and that Hannah lied about nearly everything. She calls Smoke Harvey’s daughter and finds out he was an investigative journalist who had evidence that she was related to a cult called the Nightwatchmen and had been living under an assumed name. When she confronts her father about knowing Hannah and his possible involvement in the organization, he tells her he only dated Hannah for a little while and that the Nightwatchmen did not exist. Soon afterward, he disappears. She finds out that her father’s acquaintance Servo is wanted along with Hannah by the FBI, and that her father is almost certainly involved.



The novel ends with Blue giving a disastrous valedictorian speech. She decides to travel for the summer before going to Harvard.