Pilgrim of the Sky is a novel that might be best described as mythpunk. With elements of fantasy, science fiction, Romantic poetry, steampunk, and multiverse theory, well, it isn’t exactly the sort of book that finds a comfortable little niche to sit in.
In a nutshell, it’s the story of Maddie Angler, a failed art history graduate student living in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. When her boyfriend of five years, a brilliant physics doctorate student named Alvin, disappears one February evening, Maddie’s world abruptly falls apart. To cope with matters, she takes over as caretaker for Alvin’s mentally challenged brother, Randy.
After spending a year trying to cope with his loss, and discovering hints of Alvin’s infidelity, she is on the verge of accepting the inevitable – that Alvin killed himself, and can’t be found. But when she is confronted by Alvin’s old professor, Dr. Keats, she learns some disturbing news. Dr. Keats informs her that Alvin is very much alive. He’s just not in this world.
In spite of her attempts to deny Dr. Keats’s claims, Maddie is taken against her will across worlds and given the opportunity to speak to Alvin one last time. In the process, she discovers that she is merely a small part in quite a large universe, and that that her own world – in fact, her own self – is but a variation on a theme. If she has any hopes of returning home alive, she must learn to look into the mirror and face her true self, in all its many forms.
