Supersymmetry by S.R. Schulz

“For every particle, there is a hidden one that fits perfectly together with it. Balances it out. Makes the laws of the universe work.” In this one-of-a-kind story, a young woman struggles through faltering relationships to find meaning in her identity and in love.

Getting pregnant at nineteen was never Lisa’s plan. Postpartum depression, single parenthood, her own childhood trauma, and her son’s increasingly violent outbursts make Lisa feel like she’s unraveling. Alone, with guilt weighing heavy on her mind and her path shrouded in uncertainty, she leaves her hometown in Oregon and ventures to Croatia, hoping for a fresh start.

Lisa’s present in Croatia and her past in Oregon collide in this dramatic story of a young woman looking to make her life into something more. Can Lisa run away from her problems forever, creating a new life, identity, and love for herself? Or will the pull of family prove stronger than the thousands of miles that separate them?

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Praise for Supersymmetry

SUPERSYMMETRY is SR Schulz’s modern fairytale of ancient schemas, love lorn heroes and heroines, evoked with a potent sense of place. The stakes for the traveler in every reader who can’t, yet must, decide their life, their future are immediate. Defamiliarizing the hand-holding power of unrequited love to turn us into something both more and less stable and eventually to open to wider worlds ahead.

Sophia Shalmiyev, author of Mother Winter

Supersymmetry is a raw investigation into the human heart and the mysteries of pain, healing, and the journey of self discovery. This is the novel America has been waiting for. A powerful debut from S.R. Schulz.

William Jensen, author of Cities of Men

Supersymmetry ripped my heart out in a way I neither expected nor wanted to ever end. Schulz has written something truly special in this novel.

D.T. Robbins, author of LEASING

SUPERSYMMETRY pulls you onto the dance floor on the first page and never loosens its grip as we follow Lisa through her persistent dualities: Oregon and Croatia, inner and outer scars, the before and after of a life-changing event. With her, we try to learn how to swim in between two worlds, how to stay afloat when trying on a new life and desperately wanting to drown the old one. SR Schulz writes deftly, compassionately, and beautifully about the complexities of mothering and family love, and the desperation of changing our external scenery but never being able to let go of our internal landscape.

Lexi Kent-Monning, author of The Burden of Joy

A great novel of life in our time and the burdens of fate.

Jeff Johnson, author of Darby Holland novels, Tattoo Machine, and I Shop At Laney’s

Supersymmetry is not what you’d call a feel-good novel. It will leave your heart torn at the edges, maybe. Stricken by global cycles of human cruelty, probably. Laid low with a sympathy hangover from its characters’ athletic rakija consumption, almost certainly. But what S.R. Schulz has delivered unto us is no mere act of literary masochism. Rather, this quickly-flowing book, set in the unlikely tag team of Croatia and Oregon and powered by its author’s canny talent for oblique, hyper-realistic late-teen and twenty-something dialogue, is a timely examination of the injuries we deliver unto those we nonetheless love the most, including ourselves. Ideal for uneasy parents, anyone who has ever “pulled a geographic” to pause a crisis and those looking to be eased into Balkan Peninsula socio-political history, it should be read for a reflection of one’s own darkest moments, and more importantly, for its realization of how healing rarely involves a soft landing.

Caitlin Donohue, author of She Represents: 44 Women Who Are Changing Politics . . . and the World and Weed: Cannabis Culture in the Americas

Reviews for Supersymmetry

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