Award-winning author Megan Staffel’s sixth novel, The Causative Factor, takes a deep dive into the discrete moments that shape us as we enter adulthood. While some of these moments can be cataclysmic — a jolting death, a life-changing accident or illness, or an unanticipated separation from all that is familiar — other moments can seem smaller, a stinging comment or a damning rebuke, for example. Both can be impactful, replaying in our heads and haunting us as we try to figure out our place in the world.
For art student Rachel Goodwin, the decisive moment involves Rubiat Elsayem, who she is partnered with in a Performance Art class called Body Expression. Their homework is to get to know one another and determine what their professor calls the causative factor, “the one characteristic emotion from which their words and actions derive.”
Rachel can’t move on until she knows what happened to Rubiat and why it happened.
It’s a confounding order and neither Rachel nor Rubiat are particularly stoked about the assignment. But they comply, and over the course of an evening, they zero in on each other’s strengths and weaknesses. What’s more, as the conversation evolves, they succumb to their mutual attraction and have sex.
The next morning Rubiat startles Rachel by suggesting that they spend the day together. “That’s when she knows they’re lovers,” Staffel writes. “She’s never had a lover before. She’s had sex partners, but never a lover. And if a lover is a person who wants to spend the whole next day with you, and only you, she will never settle for a sex partner again.”
Sadly, Rachel’s euphoria proves fleeting.
Although she takes Rubiat on one of her favorite hikes, Rubiat races ahead of her and does something that defies logic: He removes most of his clothing, stands on the edge of a cliff, dives into “a rush of green” and stone and completely vanishes.
His body is never recovered.
As you’d imagine, Rachel is badly shaken by this abrupt, unexpected turn. “She attends classes,” Staffel writes, “but she can’t participate; it takes weeks for the shock to subside, and even then, she feels unfamiliar, as though when he took his dive, he also took something essential of hers.”
Still, life goes on, sort of. Rachel graduates, moves to Queens, and sets out to establish herself as a visual artist while teaching ESL classes to newly-arrived immigrants. Perhaps predictably, the transition proves difficult. “The mystery of Rubiat’s disappearance was a shroud that covered her every moment. … The move to New York was an attempt to leave it behind but if anything, it has been more present,” Staffel writes.
Despite this Rachel creates increasingly bold paintings and art installations, and as her reputation develops, acclaim builds. Over time, numerous commissions allow her to leave teaching and work as a full-time artist.
A relationship with a loving man, Dusty, makes for what might be a comfortable set-up, but Rachel’s commitment to Dusty wavers due to nagging concerns about her role in Rubiat’s assumed demise. Can she truly give herself to another person, she wonders? What if there was something she did or said — some personal toxicity — that pushed Rubiat to jump?
Put simply, Rachel can’t move on until she knows what happened to Rubiat and why it happened. This concern — or obsession — propels her to seek out Rubiat’s mother and uncle. The resultant quest is equal parts mystery, adventure, and emotional excavation. A startling revelation follows.
The Causative Factor is a beautifully written look at the psychological factors that shape us into the people we ultimately become. Although the story is somewhat redemptive, this is not a happily-ever-after tale. Instead, The Causative Factor is a troubling love story about lingering pain and what it means to find peace after a traumatic experience.
The Causative Factor
By Megan Staffel
Regal House Publishing; 226 pages
Release Date: Oct. 22
