[Incandescence] has a striking profusion of tantalizing baseball references: The narrator's name is Stargell, and he is joined by a host of tangential characters called Munson, Carew, Lee MacPhail, The Georgia Peach, Concepcion, and Al Hrabosky. One searches in vain, however, for the baseball metaphors these names promise. Their use is, in fact, nothing but an idle literary device that serves no larger purpose—not surprising, really, since there is no larger purpose, not to mention theme, discernible in Incandescence.

Nova's characters do not grow in the course of the story; they stand still, reveling (as does the author) in their own quirkiness…. Yet not only does Nova give his characters unexplained eccentricities; he senselessly maims them as well, chopping off the legs of one, blinding another.

As for the story itself—well, there isn't much of that either. The author has merely strung together a series of throwaway vignettes—apparently believing them to be relevant, funny and poignant—in the hope that their very novelty will justify their creation….

Finally, the book has no significant climax. The scene where Stargell rouses himself to audition for the job of gorilla at an amusement park should be the cathartic height of the novel; after all, Stargell is here tapping the sum of his intellectual and emotional energy in a way he had not since his days at the Tank. Moreover, Nova seems to be trying to achieve in this section something similar to what John Guare achieved in The House of Blue Leaves. In a scene of that play, a devout Catholic's son acts out the tragicomic incident in his life that has warped him, leading him to a murder attempt on the Pope. The son's frantic role-playing, complete with feats of athletic prowess, tells you a great deal about the character and his motivations. Unfortunately, Nova's portrayal of Stargell's monkeyshines accomplishes nothing near this.

Although the absence of growth in a character is itself a cause for pity or sadness, in the case of this novel it merely signifies the author's failure to pick up where his literary devices leave off. In the future, Craig Nova should try to come to terms with his incandescent ideas before asking us to do so.