The Expert of Subtle Revisions: A Novel

by Kirsten Menger-Anderson

Overview

A thrilling historical mystery about a young woman searching for her father, a young man trying to solve an impossible problem, and the quest for the power to transcend time.

“From Vienna to San Francisco, I was swept away by this fascinating search for family and for answers.”—Janet Skeslien Charles, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library and Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade

One of The Washington Post’s “10 Noteworthy Books for March”

In Half Moon Bay, California, 2016, a young woman waits for her father's sailboat to arrive at port. They have agreed to meet on this day and time. Yet he never shows.

He has told her this event might come. And if it did, she was ready. Go to the library in Berkeley, find a certain book, follow the instructions. But what if the instructions lead to more questions than answers?

In 1933, a young man arrives in Vienna to begin a new post as a professor of mathematics at the university. There he finds himself part of the Engelhardt Circle, a group of intellectuals that have recently been targeted by a growing, anti-academic mob. The circle includes the preeminent minds of their time and a cast of characters desperate to get invited into their midst, many of whom will stop at nothing to get there. As fascism rises, and polarization increases, moderate voices are drowned out.

There are whispers of a machine, a music box, which can transport someone through time. But no one can confirm if it's a rumor or true. And the only people who know firsthand are not talking.

Between the young woman, who lives off the grid and spends her free time editing Wikipedia entries and picking fights with people online, and the circle of intellectuals debating space and time in Vienna on the eve of World War II, lie years of history that might easily be erased—unless old secrets are unraveled. Kirsten Menger-Anderson's beautiful meditation on time, love, and obsession shows us how we never truly know what happened in the past, and often how the past eerily mirrors the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593798300
Publisher:	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/18/2025
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Kirsten Menger-Anderson is the author of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain, a collection of short stories that was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in fiction and one of Time Out Chicago's top ten books of the year. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications including Ploughshares, the Southwest Review, LitHub, and Undark. She currently lives in San Francisco with her family. The Expert of Subtle Revisions is her debut novel.

Read an Excerpt

1

Hase

HALF MOON BAY, 2016

As far as official records go, I do not exist. There is no history of my life: no bank statements, no credit cards, no driver’s license or passport. I have no birth certificate, no Social Security number, no pay stubs, no tax returns. No close friends, aside from Harriet, and Jake, who isn’t particularly close. My only family is my dad, who isn’t my biological father.

There is no adoption record, of course.

Call me Hase. Names are like lipstick or to-do lists. I have many. I choose one that suits my mood. For now, I choose Hase, because my father calls me that. I’m waiting for him, searching the horizon for his boat, the wind tangling my hair and clothes, the ocean lending me its odor. Here, I am Hase.

Elsewhere, I go by other appellations. The strangers who ask for my number or offer to buy me a drink call me Grace. The children I tutor call me Ms. H. On Wikipedia—I contribute as a hobby (anyone can, few do)—I go by TheRabbit, though I’ve used many handles there, most banned because I break the rules too frequently.

Untrustworthy, the editors call me.

For what it’s worth, I don’t trust them, either.

Today is my birthday. It’s not the day I was born, but I always celebrate on June 11 because eleven is my favorite number and June has the longest days. Dates mean very little, my father taught me. You might as well choose a day you like.

And I did.

As a child, my father and I celebrated June 11 with Jell-O that I’d mold into shapes—a heart, a fish, a house—using pans we found in thrift stores. Each year, I picked a different shape and my father made up a story about how the next year would be informed by the Jell-O duck, or flower, or ghost.

I haven’t eaten Jell-O since I moved to San Francisco, nor has my father told me a story, but as I wait for him at the dock, I think of the last time we celebrated. That story, for my nineteenth birthday, concerned a rectangle. At the time, I considered the rectangle dull if not disappointing after years of animals and hearts, but my father insisted it was a perfect form.

“A box will not look special if you don’t open it.”

When I pointed out that I couldn’t open the Jell-O rectangle, he told me that humans are constrained by the limit of their imaginations.

In truth, I don’t think I ever liked the taste of Jell-O; I’m simply fascinated by how the powder dissolves into water and how the water then becomes solid. The solid is neither rigid, like the mold, nor hard, like the table beneath it. However, these qualities did not prevent my father from telling the story of the Jell-O box, which served as a safe with no need for a lock, as no one thought to open it.

My father has never cared for the saying “hiding in plain sight,” and the story of the Jell-O box is the story of why. The treasure inside the Jell-O box was not in plain sight. It was hidden by our failure to see beyond what we already know.

While my father told this final birthday story, I stared through the lemon-yellow Jell-O to the plate beneath. There was no way there was a treasure inside.

* * *

Today, the ocean is playing like a wrestling child, bold but without malice. I hear both the gulls and the highway traffic. The water glows with the same muted light that illuminates the shops and parking lot.

Overhead, the skies are silent. I heard a helicopter hours ago, but I’ve not heard a return flight. The fog is thick, even now, just after noon. The boats stand out against the mist, shadowy but recognizable. I watch them, though the view leaves me melancholy. There’s a falseness to my life in San Francisco. I wander between living room and dining room, kitchen and bath, and feel uncomfortable in all of these spaces. I miss the smell of diesel and ocean.

I miss my father’s boat.

I turn away from the pier and walk alongside the tourist-filled strip mall—seashells, seafood, books. The waiting has left my calves weary, my lower back and shoulders sore. I should have worn better shoes. I sit down on a bench that faces a bookstore and kick off my plastic sandals. I’ve worn down the soles unevenly. Perhaps I walk incorrectly. Maybe my posture’s bad. I’ve spent too much time bent over my laptop.

A damp chill runs from the bench through my clothes. From here, I can’t see the water, but I hear the waves. I used to think the ocean was speaking, that if I listened long enough, I’d understand its voice. The sea is telling us something, I explained, and my father agreed that the message, however unclear, must be very important. I sometimes think love is like this. We hear only the crash of its waves.

In the shop window is an advertisement for a weekly reading group and a display of books. I count seventy-four, only two by women. I count a second time to be sure. Then the salesperson emerges from the shop to ask if I need help. I know this question isn’t concern but a warning: No loitering.

“No,” I say. “I do not need help.”

I recognize the salesperson, though I don’t know his name. For the past few weeks, I’ve seen him when I meet my father. He’s one of a dozen familiar strangers I will leave behind when my father decides to meet at another harbor. Before Half Moon Bay, we met in Sausalito; before that, San Francisco; and before that, Berkeley. Ever since Dr. Ord died, we’ve moved around. It’s quieter, or easier, or safer, my father says, though I wonder if he’s mourning the loss of his friend by fleeing the places where his memories include her. Dr. Ord was his best friend. The boat belongs—belonged—to her, actually.

The bookseller leaves, but I’m tired of sitting. I slip on my sandals and return to the pier and the spectrum of grays that join the sky and the ocean. Usually, when I meet my father, he arrives first. Usually, I don’t wait for him. I’m concerned, but not worried. He’s rarely late, though he’s sometimes missed our meetings entirely: the harbor was closed and he couldn’t sail out to meet me; he failed to account for the leap year and arrived a day early; he was consumed by work or correspondence and lost track of the time. When he arrives, he’ll be happy to see I have a letter for him, tucked into my handbag. He won’t notice that I dressed in a nice plaid shirt and the one pair of jeans I own that has no holes or stains. I know better than to wear torn clothes here. People judge me: I’m sloppy. I have no fashion sense. I’m stupid. Unrefined.

Online, I’m judged even more harshly, but I feel more comfortable there. I once explained this to Harriet, and she blamed my dad.

“You basically grew up alone in a cave,” she said.

“That’s not true,” I said. “I grew up with you.”

Though even with Harriet, I don’t feel completely at ease—my breath is too loud or my stomach is grumbling. Something about me is always protesting.

But today is my birthday. I don’t wish to dwell on such things. My dad will be happy to see me and thrilled to get his letter—a thick white envelope that, like the hundreds of others I’ve retrieved over the years, is addressed only to the P.O. box, with no return address.

I search the horizon once more. A foghorn sounds, then another. The wind whips my hair. Where is he?

Editorial Reviews

Menger-Anderson’s intellectual time-travel mystery intertwines the fates of three characters and explores the scholarly movements that were targeted when fascism was on the rise in Austria.”—The Washington Post

“Neither history nor language are neutral in this time-travel mystery. . . . I enjoy it when fiction about time travel addresses tricky interpersonal questions. Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s new book, The Expert of Subtle Revisions, does just that, while exploring the way history is perforce affected by how it is told and who does the telling. . . . Hase is a fascinating narrator. . . . The 1933 chapters, meanwhile, feel eerily contemporary. . . . Menger-Anderson superbly demonstrates how a writer needn’t shy away from the political tensions of a historical period but can use them to heighten and contextualize setting, character and plot.”—Los Angeles Times

“An eloquent story of time travel and family secrets . . . Menger-Anderson does an excellent job of recreating the fraught academic and cultural life of Vienna before the 1938 Anschluss, and she effectively sustains the pretzel logic of time travel. It’s an appealing intellectual mystery.”—Publishers Weekly

“In her brilliant, unsettling novel, Kirsten Menger-Anderson reminds the reader that every nuance counts. Before, history was written by the victor; now, an army of volunteers with pseudonyms like ‘Manifold’ battle and edit each Wikipedia page. From Vienna to San Francisco, I was swept away by this fascinating search for family and for answers.”—Janet Skeslien Charles, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library and Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade

“Smart. Propulsive. Addictive. Brilliantly plotted and filled with deft twists and unforgettable characters, this dual-timeline novel about obsession, madness, and love is a must-read for fans of both mystery and historical fiction. I loved this book.”―Peggy Townsend, author of The Beautiful and the Wild

“Set in parallel historical eras, Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s fantastic novel of time-travelling mathematicians addresses the perilous line between brilliance and madness, the politics of hate, and the unsung women relegated to the shadows of history—all through a transporting story of love . . . and Wikipedia!”―Daphne Kalotay, author of The Archivists

“The Expert of Subtle Revisions begins with a mysterious disappearance and ends with a moving discovery. Along the way, Kirsten Menger-Anderson . . . manages to raise stirring questions about identity, family, and what it means to record and revise history, especially one’s own.”―Stephen McCauley, author of My Ex-Life and The Object of My Affection

“A touching and deftly constructed story about the most precious thing we have—time. From modern-day San Francisco to Croatia before the Great War and 1930s Vienna, Kirsten Menger-Anderson follows her characters as they try to solve the mysteries of science, faith, and love. A glorious book.”―Laila Lalami, author of Pulitzer Prize-finalist The Moor’s Account

From the Publisher

2024-12-14
Essayist and short story writer Menger-Anderson melds history and SF in her debut novel about loss, yearning, and the nature of reality.

The intricate plot tacks between contemporary California, where a young woman awaits a visit from her father, and 1930s Vienna, where a group of brilliant mathematicians becomes increasingly vulnerable to violence and antisemitism erupting with the rise of fascism. Hase’s father has told her that if ever he fails to appear when expected, she must go to a public library in Berkeley and retrieve a certain book by the Austrian mathematician Walfried Engelhardt and turn to page 71. When the Coast Guard finds her father’s abandoned boat, Hase follows those instructions, which set her on a circuitous path of discovery. Besides eking out a living tutoring and doing odd jobs, Hase has been devoted to editing Wikipedia entries, as was her father. “Like me,” she knows, “he enjoyed the site because he could be invisible and visible, an outsider and a participant simultaneously, a contradiction realized.” She finds comfort in browsing deleted pages, a “shadow history” of content. “Most people don’t even know it exists,” she admits, “but I’m a connoisseur of untold stories.” As Menger-Anderson’s narrative unfolds, Hase’s own shadow history emerges: She realizes her parents’ true identity, and she suddenly understands that her mysterious music box can effect time travel. Menger-Anderson drew on a memoir by her grandfather, a mathematician and member of the internationally renowned Vienna Circle in the 1930s, who was caught up in the political events that made intellectual life impossible; in 1936, he accepted a position in the U.S. and fled. As Hase discovers, though, the past can never truly be escaped; the present is haunted by shadows.

Caught in the swirl of time.

Kirkus Reviews