A Novelist Derives Physics–Crime Duality
Novelist Nova Jacobs’ parents were not scientists, but her first brush with physics came from popular nonfiction books that her father left lying around her childhood home in Flagstaff, Arizona. In particular, she recalls John Gribbin’s In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality. “That split universes and particle–wave duality were actually supported by theory felt like this totally bizarre and thrilling idea,” she says.
In the 2000s, she moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts with the dream of becoming a screenwriter. While she was initially drawn to LA as an entertainment town, she became fascinated by the parallel world of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech just over the hill in Pasadena.
Since receiving her MFA, Jacobs has created and occupied a niche that combines these disparate spheres. She writes mystery novels populated by physicists and sprinkled with insights into their daily lives. In a conversation with Physics Magazine, Jacobs describes life as a fiction writer with a fondness for physics.
All interviews are edited for brevity and clarity.
How did you go from film school into writing novels?
After graduating and getting my film scripts into development but not made into movies, I felt I needed to try something different. I’d also been craving more stimulation through the craft of writing. Scripts are blueprints for a film, but with fiction, you have near-total control over the final product. Your cast can be as large as you like, and no location is too extravagant.
Besides that, I was hired to adapt a novel for the screen, and the process got me thinking about the rhythms of prose and about potentially writing my own fiction.
For those unfamiliar with your first novel, what is it about?
The Last Equation of Isaac Severy is about a family of mathematicians and what happens after the patriarch dies under suspicious circumstances. It falls to the nonmathematician of the family—a bookshop owner in Seattle—to uncover the truth of his final equation and make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
How did you come up with the idea?
The idea of an intensely intellectual world flourishing in this bright, sunny climate, where people are looking for every excuse not to be inside, intrigued me. I started to shape a murder mystery set in and around Caltech and involving a mathematical family raised in this old house in LA.
Are your storylines what a physicist would call predeterminate? Do you start knowing how it will converge?
I do have a sense of where I’d like to end up. I put several stakes in the ground for the beginning, middle, and end of the book; I then wind my way through these signposts with the characters leading the way. Some signposts stick, and others I have to move or change completely. That’s what keeps the draft interesting.
How do you weave together clues and plot twists to construct a mystery?
The great thing about writing mysteries is that if you show up at your desk consistently and you’ve spent enough time devouring the genre, your subconscious does much of the work for you. I’m still surprised by how clues and story elements can snap into place—but I think that’s how it works for many writers.
Did you consult with physicists about the material?
Yes! In researching my string-theory character, Philip Severy, for my first novel, I had so much fun talking with Ed Witten at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey and meeting with John Schwarz at Caltech. These guys are giants in the theoretical physics world and were like celebrities to me.
For my second novel, I spent a week at CERN in Switzerland trailing particle physicists. It was one of the most thrilling weeks of my life.
What did you learn from them?
As much as I’m interested in the science, I also want to understand the types of people who choose this as their life’s work, what moves them, and what their day-to-day looks like. My characters weren’t modeled after anyone in particular, and of course the murder aspect is purely fictional, but I hope the science-minded will recognize themselves in my characters.
You mentioned CERN for your second novel. What’s that one about?
In The Stars Turned Inside Out, the body of a physicist is found inside CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. A private detective and a colleague of the deceased set out to uncover how he died. It’s a twist on the “locked-room” genre of mysteries, where a crime happens in a room that’s locked to the outside world. In Stars, the locked room is a 27-km-long tunnel sitting beneath the Swiss–French border.
Did you change your approach when you tackled your second novel?
Not consciously. I researched both pretty intensively, though there can be much hand-wringing when you set out to write a second novel. I wrote the bulk of it during the pandemic, so it’s difficult to know the exact source of any angst. Still, I found immersing myself in a novel during that time comforting.
How does it feel when you send a first draft to your editor? What’s peer review like for a fiction writer?
I probably feel a combination of elated and sick to my stomach. You try to focus on other things. Ideally, you’re paired with an editor who understands what you’re trying to do. Then it’s a collaboration focused on tightening the manuscript and bringing out the best in the characters and the world you’ve created.
What’s your writing routine like? Do you see parallels between the life of a writer and that of a physicist?
I stick to a writing routine nearly every day, generally five hours, more if I’m editing. Most of the rest of my time is filled with reading, research, and walking. Many of the physicists I’ve met love mulling over a problem on a long walk. I’ve found that story solutions come to me that way too.
One thing that struck me at CERN is how incredibly athletic everyone is. I’d follow them for an eight-hour workday, then they’d invite me to join them kayaking across Lake Geneva. The fullness of life there, artistically and athletically and intellectually, really impressed me.
Will you tell me anything about your next novel?
It’s another mystery, set in an academic location abroad. I hope to have news soon!
–Rachel Berkowitz
Rachel Berkowitz is a Corresponding Editor for Physics Magazine based in Vancouver, Canada.