The Half Life of Stars

by Wener, Louise

• ISBN13: 9780060841737
• ISBN10: 0060841737
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-01
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Claire's older brother, Daniel, has disappeared. He leaves work one Friday afternoon, shortly before Christmas, and vanishes into thin air. Married, successful, rich, there seems no reason why he would abandon his life. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had enough? Set between London and Miami, this is the story of a family with ghosts to bury. It opens on the day of the Challenger shuttle explosion at Cape Canaveral: a tragic moment that rips this family apart and sets Daniel's disappearance in motion some 18 years later. In the midst of it all sits Claire-;divorced, irresponsible, fluent in six foreign languages yet hopeless at interpreting life. It is Claire who knows Daniel best. It is Claire who becomes convinced that she knows where her older brother is and sets off on a journey to find him.

Excerpts

The Half Life of Stars
A Novel

Chapter One

Obviously a Major Malfunction

As Daniel yawned and climbed into his father's car that morning, he saw a poodle being dressed in a red knitted coat. Huffs of hot dog-breath sprang from the animal's mouth—white, steamy and most likely malodorous—while its owner tightened straps and fastened collars, and swaddled its shivering belly in a layer of cloth. The animal appeared resolutely unimpressed, yelping and digging its paws into the wind-whipped sand while its master tugged patiently at its neck. Even with the benefit of outdoor clothing, it still seemed unwilling to get going.

It was January in Florida and a deep, rare chill had swept the sunshine state from coast to coast. Palm trees swayed uneasily beneath a stiff crust of frost and beaches the length of the Space Coast looked like they'd been newly dusted with sugar. The freeze extended as far south as Miami and the Keys, and the crisp cold air, loaded with the prospect of rain, reminded Daniel of winters back home. In the hours before dawn only the intrepid and the insomniacs and the crazies were out on the streets and Daniel wished—like the dog—that he could have slunk back to the warmth of his bed.

It might not have brought him much comfort. Even safe in their houses, buried beneath their quilts, Floridians were having trouble sleeping. Old men lay awake worrying about their pets. Fruit growers worried about their oranges. Cuban émigrés worried about their relatives making landfall in the sub-zero cold and hoteliers fretted about lost business. And some way to the north, in the depths of a government building, the seven loneliest people in all the world tossed and turned and called out in their sleep, their minds alive with unwelcome nightmares.

As they hit the start of the turnpike, Daniel's father extinguished his breakfast cigarette. He gave an empty belch like a small cry for help and felt around in the glove compartment for a half-eaten box of Rennies. Lately he'd been guzzling antacids like a newborn baby guzzles milk, and the early start had set off a vigorous bout of indigestion. So profuse were his father's digestive juices that Daniel sometimes imagined his stomach to be awash with them: gallons of fizzing acid; pools of yellow bile; creeping up the narrow tunnel of his oesophagus until they burnt a hole right through his chest.

'Excited?' said his father, stuffing squares of chalk into his mouth. 'It's going to be pretty exciting, if it goes.'

Daniel nodded.

'Long drive again, though. Four hours at least. Should we stop off for pancakes, are you hungry?'

Daniel shook his head.

'I could eat some dry toast. Maybe we'll stop for some toast.'

Daniel knew his father wouldn't stop. The same way he hadn't stopped the day before. He'd speed without a break all the way to Titusville, then he'd buy them both a hamburger at a drivethrough McDonald's. They'd eat in the car with the radio on while his father muddled himself with directions and map-books, and complained about the illogic of American road signs. They'd been living in Florida for close to a year now, but the exit signs still managed to confuse him.

'Hey, you awake? We're almost there.'

Daniel had slept most of the way. He stirred as he felt the car's engine cut out beneath him and his body snapped easily back to life. These days it took his father a full hour to escape the bounds of sleep, but Daniel was whole in mere seconds. His father examined him carefully, his pride hiding a brief spike of envy. His son the athlete: the daredevil; the championship sprinter. His son the malcontent: the back-talker; the monosyllabic mood machine.

'How's your burger?'

'It's OK.'

'Is it good, you like it?'

'It's fine.'

'Your coffee warm? Sometimes they give you a cold coffee.'

'It's OK, Dad. Stop asking me.'

Daniel's father screwed up his serviette and pointed his car eastward towards the Cape. When had his son started drinking coffee? When exactly had he made the switch from Coca-Cola? When had he decided he knew everything about the world when he really knew nothing at all?

'You think it's going to go this time? You think that teacher lady's going to make it all the way up to Mars?'

'They're not going to Mars, Dad.'

'Yeah, I know. Just testing. Just trying to put a smile on your face.'

Daniel turned to stare out of the window, embarrassed by his father's attempt at humour. How had their relationship deteriorated this far? He'd expected to be an embarrassment to his teenage son—wasn't that the fate of all fathers—but he hadn't expected to disgust him. This, then, was the purpose of their trip. Daniel's mother and sisters had stayed put in Miami Beach while the two of them drove north to repair their bonds. Already, it was turning out badly. This was the second time in two days he'd made the long drive up to Cape Canaveral and he was fighting exhaustion as well as his son's contempt. Yesterday they'd left Dade County even earlier and stood for hours in the bitter wind with the other sightseers at Jetty Park, while they'd waited for the rocket to go. His son had sneered at him when he'd called it a rocket. But what else was it? It was a rocket that came home again; big deal, it was still a rocket.

They'd called off that first launch just past noon. And for what? Some jammed door bolt that wouldn't loosen. They'd had to fetch up a portable drill to break it open, but when they'd found one its battery was dead. A billion dollars of the most sophisticated technology known to man, an entire space centre crammed with NASA's sharpest minds. And still they couldn't get the damn thing off the ground: for the want of a lousy pack of Duracell.

The Half Life of Stars
A Novel. Copyright © by Louise Wener. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from The Half Life of Stars: A Novel by Louise Wener
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