Digging Stars: A Novel

Book excerpt: A brilliant new novel from the award-winning author of House of Stone. With admission to The Program, Rosa fulfills her dream to continue her father’s research on Bantu geometries and Indigenous astronomies. Yet since his death during her childhood, she has been plagued by anxiety attacks that she dubs “The Terrors”—and by unresolved questions about her father’s life. Who is his mysterious friend Mr. C? Who was her father, really? Her cohort of talented Fellows includes Shaniqua, her roommate, studying melanin molecules and their capacity to conduct electricity in order to redefine how we think about race and biology; Richard, studying quantum mechanics; Mausi, focusing on Indigenous American scientific thought; and Peralte, a kind of stepbrother whose obsessive gaming has made him a programmer of virtual worlds—all of whom will challenge Rosa’s notions of ethnicity, identity, the ethics of technology, her adulation of her father, and what it means to be successful in America. Full of philosophical provocation and gorgeous writing about space, Digging Stars is a brilliantly original reflection on meritocracy and the narrow notions of success that alienate us from the cosmos—a gravity-defying novel both about unlimited aspiration and the importance of being grounded.