The Causative Factor

by Megan Staffel

Overview

When Rachel and Rubiat meet in art school, they are surprised by a sudden passion. But it is tested, right away, when Rubiat gives in to a reckless, self-destructive impulse that sets him adrift. Rachel has no choice but to resume her studies even though she doesn't know what happened to him or if he survived. After graduation, she moves to Queens, New York, where she begins a career as a painter while supporting herself by teaching ESL classes to immigrants. When she gets together with another man and things become serious, she realizes she can’ t go forward until she solves the mystery of Rubiat’s disappearance. Told in shifting points of view, The Causative Factor explores the power of art and love in a story that asserts the complexities of human nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646034932
Publisher:	Regal House Publishing
Publication date:	10/22/2024
Pages:	223
Sales rank:	631,545
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Megan Staffel is the award-winning author of six books of fiction, the novels, The Causative Factor, The Notebook of Lost Things, She Wanted Something Else, and three collections of stories, most recently The Exit Coach and Lessons in Another Language. She taught for many years in the MFA program at Warren Wilson College and keeps a blog, What I’ m Reading, on her website. She lives in Brooklyn and a small town in western New York State.

Editorial Reviews

"Suspenseful, original, and full of heart, this novel gripped me from the first page and continued to surprise me throughout. What does it mean to make a life, to make art, to make a life making art? I’ll always remember these characters and their complex paths.” Andrea Barrett, national book award winner, Natural History

I couldn’t stop turning the pages of Megan Staffel’s THE CAUSATIVE FACTOR. Her characters are so vivid and so complicated and their lives are full of exhilarating surprises as they try to shape the future and negotiate the past. A spellbinding novel. Margot Livesey, The Boy in the Field

Early on in Megan Staffel's beautiful new book, there's talk of art that "proves the extraordinary is out and about in the world." THE CAUSATIVE FACTOR is just that proof. Haunting, stirring, and bracingly romantic, this is a novel to fall head over heels for." Liam Callanan, When in Rome

Megan Staffel writes as gorgeously and movingly about the psychological legacies that inform our choices as she does about the way in which art and a deep attunement to nature allow us to create ourselves anew. Staffel tells us that “the smallest acts matter” and in this astute and embracing novel, she shows us the ways in which a dab of paint on a canvas, or the movement of water in a stream, can change lives. Marisa Silver, The Mysteries

Megan Staffel’s compelling new novel follows Rachel and Rubiat as they embark on a project that lasts long past college. As desires collide, splinter, and realign, Staffel deftly weaves a startling, artful story of how to make a life. Tara Deal, Life/Insurance

Megan Staffel’s THE CAUSATIVE FACTOR is a singular, exquisitely written story of love sundered by circumstance and misunderstanding Peter Selgin, A Boy’s Guide to Outer Space

From the Publisher

2024-07-18
An accident links the lives of two lovers in Staffel’s novel.

Rachel Goodwin first sees Rubiat Elsayem when they attend a New York college together and meet in a performance art class called Body Expression. They’re partners on a project in which each must define the other’s essential quality. They fall in love over a 24-hour period before finding themselves on a long hike at Stony Brook State Park. Rachel watches Rubiat impulsively dive from a cliff and assumes (incorrectly) that he’s dead. She tries desperately to move on from the shock. The novel is split into two halves: The first follows Rachel through the aftermath as she builds her career as an artist and language teacher in Queens, eventually meeting someone new. The second follows both Rachel and Rubiat. Rachel unpacks her deep feelings for Rubiat, and he explores his issues with impulse control and pressure in the wake of leaving Rachel in such a spectacularly weird way. Staffel also incorporates perspectives from Dusty, Rachel’s boyfriend, whom she meets through her friend Angela, who’s Chinese American. The book movingly depicts the complexity of human psychology, such as Rachel’s inability to forget Rubiat. Other weighty themes, like Angela’s exoticization by her German boyfriend, are glossed over—a missed opportunity. Ultimately, the novel becomes a fascinating portrayal of identity, expanding on the moment that brought Rachel and Rubiat together (which lends its name as the title), explained by their teacher as an exercise that would guide the participants toward finding “their deepest motivation, the hidden foundation of their character, that quality that makes them the person they are.” A suspenseful plotline, sometimes slowed by flat secondary characters, continues to investigate the cast’s motivations, and Staffel probes Rachel’s and Rubiat’s personalities right until the final page.

A gripping, unusual romance fueled by an ongoing mystery.

Kirkus Reviews