When lost Larry Brown discovers that his childhood friend, Bradley, has joined a cult called The Path to God, he becomes mixed up in another family’s bid to kidnap and “deprogram” a relative. This may sound like the latest Dan Brown thriller, but Zvonkovic handles it like a tight rope walker handles a balancing rod; realism on one end, symbolism on the other. Don’t expect the fun suspense and action that this plot summary implies.

“When Mermaids Sing” is more interested in the juxtaposition of Bradley’s adopted lifestyle and those of contemporary society. His writing is small town savvy, filled with memories that any reader might recognize, and with a taught wit and attention to detail that makes humor a large part of Larry’s journey. Although frequent tense shifts, present to past, have a propensity to transport the reader without a moment’s notice to some distant or frequent memory of Larry’s, they soon become a welcome staple of the novel.

Zvonkovic’s novel is more than merely the sum of its parts; rather it is a collection of stories that build on running themes. Like Bradley, Larry is trapped in a cult of his own, brainwashed into feelings of guilt at the hands of his girlfriend, family, and job. His climatic struggle to bring Bradley back to the world is a defining moment for Larry, and perfectly threads the separate strings of his life together, unfortunately, only to form a noose.

Brown’s musings about life, time, and little things are mesmerizing and show a literary deftness that goes deeper than the story’s surface structure. It also speaks to the book’s proclivity to jump from point to point in time as if they were charged electrons bouncing around in an atom rather than linear.