The End of Mr. y

by Thomas, Scarlett

• ISBN13: 9780156031615
• ISBN10: 0156031612
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-02
• Publisher: Mariner Books

Summary

"Ariel Manto has a fascination with The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read - maybe because it's cursed and everyone related to it (the author, various book collectors, Ariel's doctoral advisor) disappears. But suddenly she discovers a rare copy in a used bookstore. Using the book to follow in Mr. Y's footsteps, she falls into a trance and steps into the Troposphere - a wonderland of an alternate dimension where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. And so Ariel launches into a heart-racing, brain-teasing, time-twisting adventure of science, faith, consciousness, death, and everything in between."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Scarlett Thomas teaches writing at the University of Kent and lives in Canterbury.

Excerpts

Chapter OneYou now have one choice.You . . . Im hanging out of the window of my office, sneaking a cigarette and trying to read Margins in the dull winter light, when theres a noise I havent heard before. All right, the noisecrash, bang, etcI probably have heard before, but its coming from underneath me, which isnt right. There shouldnt be anything underneath me: Im on the bottom floor. But the ground shakes, as if somethings trying to push up from below, and I think about other peoples mothers shaking out their duvets or even God shaking out the fabric of space-time; then I think, Fucking hell, its an earthquake, and I drop my cigarette and run out of my office at roughly the same time that the alarm starts sounding.When alarms sound I dont always run immediately. Who does? Usually an alarm is just an empty sign: a drill; a practice. As Im on my way to the side door out of the building the shaking stops. Shall I go back to my office? But its impossible to stay in this building when this alarm goes off. Its too loud; it wails inside your head. As I leave the building I walk past the Health and Safety notice board, which has pictures of injured people on it. The pictures blur as I go past: A man who has back pain is also having a heart attack, and various hologram people are trying to revive him. I was supposed to go to some Health and Safety training last year, but didnt.As I open the side door I can see people leaving the Russell Building and walking, or running, past our block and up the gray concrete steps in the direction of the Newton Building and the library. I cut around the right-hand side of the building and bound up the concrete steps, two at a time. The sky is gray, with a thin TV-static drizzle that hangs in the air like its been freeze-framed. Sometimes, on these January afternoons, the sun squats low in the sky like an orange-robed Buddha in a documentary about the meaning of life. Today there is no sun. I come to the edge of the large crowd that has formed, and I stop running. Everyone is looking at the same thing, gasping and making firework-display noises.Its the Newton Building.Its falling down.I think of this toyhave I seen it on someones desk recently?which is a little horse mounted on a wooden button. When you press the button from underneath, the horse collapses to its knees. Thats what the Newton Building looks like now. Its sinking into the ground, but in a lopsided way; one corner is now gone, now two, now . . . Now it stops. It creaks, and it stops. A window on the third floor flaps open, and a computer monitor falls out and smashes onto whats left of the concrete courtyard below. Four men with hard hats and fluorescent jackets slowly approach the broken-up courtyard; then another man comes, says something to them, and they all move away again.Two men in gray suits are standing next to me.Dj vu, one of them says to the other.I look around for someone I know. Theres Mary Robinson, the head of department, talking

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Excerpted from The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas
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