The Wave Theory of Angels

Alison MacLeod

Novelist living in Brighton

The Wave Theory of Angels

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The story unfolds across two different centuries, two different worlds. One narrative thread is set in 1284 in France, while the other is set in Chicago in 2001, and both work to explore the mystery and imagination that exists in the world. In France, Christina is a beekeeper and sister of Marguerite who is the daughter of heretic and sculptor Giles of Beauvais. Christina struggles to keep a secret. In Chicago, city of towers and home to Fermilab, the world-renowned physics lab, Christina Carver, a daughter of two of Giles Carver, also keeps a secret. One night a bell rings when a telephone rings, Christina fails to wake, and all six lives of the fathers and daughters, are changed forever. In the days that follow the night, each is forced to confront what is real and what is not in a world that is precarious, relative, and unrelentingly mysterious.

Alison Macleod was born and lived in Canada until 1987 when she moved to England to take up a place on Lancaster University's MA in Creative Writing. She is a citizen of both countries but now lives permanently in Brighton and teaches on the MA in Creative Writing at University College Chichester.

Alison Macleod has published two novels: The Changeling (1996) and The Wave Theory of Angels (2005). She has written for a number of magazines including the London Magazine and Prospect. A short story collection entitled Live Wire is to be published later this year.