When young Melissa Comb dies of leukaemia, her neighbours experience a strange musical hallucination that brings them all out on the street in wonder. In the Comb house the remaining family seems to disintegrate without Melissa, as they each struggle with their grief individually.
The novel might have a bit of a slow start, beginning first with a series of witness accounts of the ‘Spark Close Phenomenon’, newspaper articles and a summary of Melissa’s illness until her death. Keeping all the neighbours straight was a challenge at first, but as the story unfolded the ones that were central in the narrative stood out with a clear voice and presence. But it is not until a few chapters in where the third person narrative begins to closely follow the Comb family in the aftermath of Melissa’s death.
It is at times a heartbreaking read, as we see Melissa’s father, mother and half-sister pull away from each other. Their family seems suddenly fragile without Melissa, as if she was the only thing they all shared a common interest. Yet, as they slowly spiral away from one another, there are moments where they connect deeply in shared grief and love and understanding.
The phenomenon also seems like a metaphor for the inevitable change that comes after the death of anyone. The effect is has on the lives of not only her immediate family, but also on the neighbourhood as a whole. It brings together, for a short moment, a group of people to share the devastating grief of death and the incredible beauty of life. It is almost impossible not to be touched by such tragedy, and for some of the neighbours the effect is life-changing.
The novel grapples with the abstract border of the natural and the supernatural, spiritualism and secularism, with the joy and the grief of music. As people crowd to the Close after hearing of the phenomenon, the private household of the Combs gets disturbed by consistent pressure from the public, as Melissa, posthumously, is turned into a spiritual icon or a angelic figure. The family’s already complicated relationship with music is intensified through its connection with Melissa, her love of it when alive, and then during her death. The characters thread a fine line between accepting the phenomenon, and trying to explain and comprehend it. The novel is interested in medicine, physics and the technicalities of classical music, and it’s well researched and the science is very approachable.
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