Theater of the Stars
By N.M. Kelby
Hyperion, 2003

(From the publisher) Lucienne Kundera is an astrophysicist who studies black holes. Her mother, Helene, is a scientist as well, with a secret past that seems to be a darker, more baffling enigma than anything the heavens can offer.

Decades ago, during World War II, Helene was shot and fled Paris. Many years later, she reappeared in Los Alamos, New Mexico, with baby Lucienne and a secret she would tell no one. Or perhaps, couldn't tell. Now, all Lucienne knows of her father is that he is dead. Who he is, and where her mother was all those years, is the one mystery she fears she may never solve.

When Helene and Lucienne visit Paris for Lucienne to recieve an award for her most recent discovery, Helene is overcome by memories and secrets, and attempts suicide. Horrified that her mother might be slipping through her fingers—devastated to lose her, and to give up any hope of learning what happened to her mother and who her father was—Lucienne begins a race against time to uncover the past. She enlists the help of Basheer, her mother's doctor and a man with his own secrets—many of which, remarkably, seem to thread themselves into Lucienne's.

About the author
(From the author's Web site) N. M. Kelby is the winner of a Bush Artist Fellowship in Literature, the Heekin Group Foundation's James Fellowship for the Novel, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, a Jerome Travel Study Grant, and a Jewish Arts Endowment Fellowship. Her poems and short stories have appeared in numerous journals, including Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope: All-Story Extra and the Mississippi Review. She divides her time between Sarasota, Florida, and Minnetonka, Minnesota.