I first heard of Sergio De La Pava a little over a decade ago when his 2008 self-published novel, A Naked Singularity, made a lot of buzz and was subsequently published by The University of Chicago Press, going on to make several prize lists. I still frequently see people reading it. Today, his fourth novel, Every Arc Bends Its Radian, is out from Simon & Schuster. It’s my first time venturing into his work, but it won’t be my last. It’s very weird, but in a way I found invigorating. I was never tired while reading it.

The book begins as our narrator, Riv del Rio, is disembarking a plane that has brought him from New York to Cali, Colombia. However, even before the first paragraph, we get some interesting headers:

1st entry: a light alight

THE ARGUMENT

A man responds to horror with flight. But evasion and connection are bipolar.

What does that all mean? Of course, at that point I had no idea, but it seemed to suggest that Riv doesn’t find himself in Cali because of anything in Cali. Rather, he’s running from something else. As we start getting to know him, Riv does seem a bit aimless. He doesn’t even know where he’ll go from the airport, so he calls his cousin, Mauro, who is just a month’s-old missed call on his phone. Mauro, for his part, seems delighted to have Riv in town, but he must recognize that something is off. After Riv is in town for about 24 hours, Mauro is trying to figure out what they’re going to do even just that evening. He’s not getting anywhere, so he brings up a favor:

“About dah favor, primo.” All day he’s giving me English and I’m in Spanish, like we’ve silently agreed to not be at our best.

—Unless the favor is for me to black out drunk, what shame, but I will have to say no.

“Remember Doña Carlotta?”

—The words, not so much the person. ¿She wore those fancy headscarves? ¡In this ungodly heat!

I was already enjoying the off-kilter tone of the novel, but this exchange won me over completely. Here we have two people talking different languages, and De La Pava translates it at their worst, even including the punctuation of Riv’s Spanish sentences. Put this comedy next to the dark tone and put them next to those philosophical chapter headings, and I knew I was in for a ride. But, to be clear, I had no idea what kind of a ride I was in store for. I didn’t expect any of the jolting turns this story takes.

But back to Mauro and Riv and that favor. Doña Carlota’s brilliant daughter, Angelica Alfa-Ochoa, who went to MIT, has gone missing, and her mom would like Riv to help find her. Yes, she has already asked for Riv’s help, and Mauro has already said yes on Riv’s behalf . . . how? You just have to keep reading.

The next several chapters run like a detective novel, for the most part. We still have those philosophical chapter headings, and indeed in many of the chapters Riv is contemplating existence. But we’re soon aware that Angelica Alfa-Ochoa’s situation is horribly wrong, to the point where everyone, her mother included, thinks it best that everyone just let it go. Riv — and we still don’t know what he’s trying to escape by going head-first into the void — cannot let it go. He has to find out what has happened. He isn’t going to like what he finds. Here’s just a preview of Riv, trying to reason with a truly horrific being:

“I want you to understand that every human death, even the most unsurprising and timely one, radiates out misery and suffering and desolation. That they accumulate until it feels the darkness will ultimately prevail over the light. You don’t contribute to that.”

“And I want you to understand that I don’t care. I don’t care about humanity and never really have. This is so much bigger than all that and, frankly, you should be grateful for your extremely privileged view of this development and your role as handpicked documenter, instead of doing whatever this is.”

This was quite the ride, and I’m excited to take another soon with another of De La Pava’s novels.