The Causative Factor

Overview

When Rachel and Rubiat meet in art school, they are surprised by a sudden passion. But it is tested, right away, when Rubiat gives in to a reckless, self-destructive impulse that sets him adrift. Rachel has no choice but to resume her studies even though she doesn't know what happened to him or if he survived. After graduation, she moves to Queens, New York, where she begins a career as a painter while supporting herself by teaching ESL classes to immigrants. When she gets together with another man and things become serious, she realizes she can’t go forward until she solves the mystery of Rubiat’s disappearance. Told in shifting points of view, The Causative Factor explores the power of art and love in a story that asserts the complexities of human nature.

Reviews

“Suspenseful, original, and full of heart, this novel gripped me from the first page and continued to surprise me throughout. What does it mean to make a life, to make art, to make a life making art? I’ll always remember these characters and their complex paths.” Andrea Barrett, national book award winner, Natural History

I couldn’t stop turning the pages of Megan Staffel’s THE CAUSATIVE FACTOR. Her characters are so vivid and so complicated and their lives are full of exhilarating surprises as they try to shape the future and negotiate the past. A spellbinding novel. Margot Livesey, The Boy in the Field

Early on in Megan Staffel's beautiful new book, there's talk of art that "proves the extraordinary is out and about in the world." THE CAUSATIVE FACTOR is just that proof. Haunting, stirring, and bracingly romantic, this is a novel to fall head over heels for." Liam Callanan, When in Rome

Megan Staffel writes as gorgeously and movingly about the psychological legacies that inform our choices as she does about the way in which art and a deep attunement to nature allow us to create ourselves anew. Staffel tells us that “the smallest acts matter” and in this astute and embracing novel, she shows us the ways in which a dab of paint on a canvas, or the movement of water in a stream, can change lives. Marisa Silver, The Mysteries

Megan Staffel’s compelling new novel follows Rachel and Rubiat as they embark on a project that lasts long past college. As desires collide, splinter, and realign, Staffel deftly weaves a startling, artful story of how to make a life. Tara Deal, Life/Insurance

Megan Staffel’s THE CAUSATIVE FACTOR is a singular, exquisitely written story of love sundered by circumstance and misunderstanding Peter Selgin, A Boy’s Guide to Outer Space

Author Biography

Megan Staffel is the award-winning author of six books of fiction, the novels, The Causative Factor, The Notebook of Lost Things, She Wanted Something Else, and three collections of stories, most recently The Exit Coach and Lessons in Another Language. She taught for many years in the MFA program at Warren Wilson College and keeps a blog, What I’m Reading, on her website. She lives in Brooklyn and a small town in western New York State.