Prismatic Fiction

There is no such thing, Oscar Wilde believed, as a moral or immoral book. “Books are well written, or badly written,” the Irish critic preferred. Wilde had his 19th-century aesthetic reasons for this standard. If Thomas Trofimuk’s third novel, Waiting for Columbus, were exposed to Wildian measures, a variation on the formula particular to the 21st century, and a once shiny new art form, might emerge: an original book may contain within it a conventional movie and still be worthwhile.

Waiting for Columbus is replete with film tropes and types. A patient in an institute for the mentally ill, unable to cope with reality, adopts an outlandish identity, in this case that of the renowned 15th-century explorer. An attractive nurse with a checkered romantic past falls for his charm and vulnerability. A wise psychiatrist, knowing how important stories are, allows the patient to unfold his elaborate tale. A detective, seeking a missing person, draws closer...