A family story told in four dramatic sections that explores how small actions and changes can give rise to startling and unintended consequences.
Trajectory. Declination. Impact. Escape Velocity. These are rocketry terms that could also describe aspects of the human experience.
A lumberjack with a penchant for rocketry loses three different wedding rings, and each of the lost rings symbolizes something different to each person who finds it.
There are the members of a rich family whose dramas overlap with those of the homeless people living right next door, under the bridges of the Rosedale Ravine. The wheelchair-bound teen who declares war on a man parking his luxury car in the handicapped parking spot. The would-be rockstar selling insurance, whose terminal diagnosis sets his life on a new and dizzying path. And many others. Every person is connected to every other - genetically, coincidentally, necessarily, or randomly. Every action has a consequence, seen or unseen, from the sublime to the catastrophic.
Rockets Versus Gravity is a novel that illustrates the forces that change our courses and impact our lives, and the connections between us that we don't always see.
Industry Reviews
Creates its own small universe of hope, frustration, love, lust, tragedy, and comedy. Each chapter adds to a quirky wholeness, forming a haunting pattern evocative of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. * ForeWord Reviews *
Expertly weaves these seemingly unrelated characters into one larger story - a technique reminiscent of Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad. Scarsbrook portrays these characters so vividly that the reader cannot help but empathize with them. * Novella Magazine *
Such a fun ride ... Each story weaves from one to another and it is fun putting them all together. * Coffee and Books *
what I loved most about this book was how it all came together, how all the characters were connected in some way, which, as I see all the time, isn't that unrealistic. * Book Time *
Scarsbrook provides readers with a mosaic-a series of narratives that straddle the line between a full-fledged novel and a collection of interlocking short stories. Embracing ideas of synchronicity and chaos theory, Scarsbrook jumps around in time and place * Subterrain *
Rockets Versus Gravity was a good read, it took me less than a day to read it because I was so curious to see where it was going to go. I loved getting to read a book set in Toronto and small-towns much like my own * Broken Pencil *